


Season One: Men Took the Girl to Slay Demons

by dandelioness



Series: Joanna Beth the Vampire Slayer [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Vampire Slayer, Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Freeform, Crossover, Gen, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-19
Updated: 2013-10-08
Packaged: 2017-12-27 00:49:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/972355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandelioness/pseuds/dandelioness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Jo gets a black eye, makes some new friends of questionable character, slays some vampires, learns some new things about old friends of questionable character, sets out to save the world, and gets increasingly exasperated with Lawrence's general inability to understand the meaning of a secret identity.<br/>Not necessarily in that order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Episode One. Pilot

             _There’s a man with eyes like molten gold and a smile like a used car salesman and sometimes he watches the nightmares with Sam.  They stand there, like two bystanders on a park bench and watch helpless (in Sam’s case at least; he gets the feeling that the man with the yellow eyes isn’t inclined to help at all) as the nightmares just_ happen _.  Happen to other people._

_To a boy named Scott, stabbed to death in a parking lot._

_To a girl named Ava, burning on the ceiling._

_Sometimes, the man with the yellow eyes will talk to Sam.  Once, he sighs as they watch Ava burn, and says, “It’s a pity, really.  She would have made a great asset to our team.”_

_“Why’d you do it?” Sam asks, his voice hoarse from the screams he hasn’t screamed tonight.  “Why’d you kill her?”_

_“Because she would have killed me,” he says simply._

_But that dream was weeks ago, and tonight Sam watches as terrible things happen to the family of a boy called Max.  Terrible, impossible accidents._

_“Why do they keep dying?” Sam asks the man with the yellow eyes._

_“Because they aren’t his family,” the man responds coldly.  (Some nights, like tonight, there is something terribly wrong with the shape of his face.  It folds into unnatural ridges and sharp edges and_ hunger _.)  “Not really.  Family takes care of family.”_

_“Who is his real family, then?” Sam asks, because it makes sense to ask, in the dream._

_“I am,” the yellow-eyed man says.  And then he turns to Sam, his face softening until it looks human, until the used-car-salesman smile is firmly in place.  “You are.”_

_“I am?”_

_“A mutual friend of ours is coming to town, Sam.  I think you’ll be pleased to see him.”_

            Sam wakes up in a cold sweat, terrified and not sure why.  Part of him wants nothing more than to creep across the hall and crawl into Dean’s bed like when they were little, but he doesn’t.  He doesn’t want to worry Dean, to see the look in his brother’s eyes when he realizes that Sam had another nightmare.  So instead, Sam lays on his back in his own bed, staring at the ceiling and focusing on his breathing and counting the minutes until his alarm goes off for school.

 

            “Who the hell taught you to use makeup?” Mom asks from where she’s leaning in the bathroom doorway.  Jo can see in the mirror that Mom’s trying to hide a smile, and that just pisses her off more.

            “Not you, that’s for sure,” Jo snaps, and tries to fix the concealer over her black eye for the third frigging time.

            “Where did you even get that stuff?  I didn’t think we owned any facepaint between us.”

            “It’s Dean’s,” is all Jo’s curt response.  Mom sighs and shakes her head, coming into the bathroom and swiping a washcloth off the rack on her way to Jo.  Jo throws the makeup onto the floor in frustration.  “I look like a clown.  _God_ , how do other girls do this every day?”

            “Practice,” Mom says patiently, and soaks the washcloth in hot water.  She starts to wipe at the mess that is currently Jo’s face, being especially tender around the bruises and the nasty cut over her eyebrow.  That one would’ve needed stitches on anyone without enhanced healing, and even on Jo it still looks awful.  She’s a little worried it’ll leave a scar, but Mom insists that she’s pretty sure Slayers don’t scar.  Like at all.  Which totally isn’t freaky or anything.  (Later, she’ll find out the hard way that this isn’t true; it just takes a _very_ nasty injury to leave one.)  “Honey, I think you’re better off just leaving well enough alone and just letting your shiner, well, shine.”

            “Right, because I really need that kind of attention,” Jo grouses, even though Mom is probably right.  The makeup thing is pretty much totally hopeless.  She’s pretty sure that if you made a graph of ‘amount of flannel worn’ and ‘ability to do makeup,’ there’d be a – what’s it called? she learned this in algebra the other day, she’s sure – inverse relationship?  Correlation?  Something.  Point is, Jo wears a lot of flannel and apparently can’t apply makeup, and she’s pretty sure she’s not the only one on earth who fits that description.

            “Sweetie, it’ll just look worse if it looks like you’re trying to hide it.”

            “Well, what am I supposed to tell people?  ‘Oh yeah, hand-to-hand combat with vampires is a lot harder than I expected, even with the super strength?’  Or how about, ‘There’s a reason I chose throwing knives as my weapon of choice when I was six, and it’s because I hate it when they get close enough to punch me in the face?’”

            “Don’t get smart with me, young lady,” Mom says, but she doesn’t have her Warning Voice on, so Jo can totally keep playing the pity card.  “Are you really concerned about how people will react after the knife debacle?”

            “Okay, we live on a _Hellmouth_ ,” Jo says defensively.  “It is perfectly reasonable to keep defensive weapons handy.  Like, how many kids have died and-or been mauled while still at school, I ask you?”

            Mom is only irritatingly amused.  “Hey, I never said I disapproved.  I just didn’t exactly appreciate the phone call from Principal Raphael after you were _caught_.”  Jo mumbles a _yeah, yeah_ as Mom bowls onward.  “Besides, who’s going to ask, other than those Winchester dumbasses?”

            “I guess you have a point, though I’m pretty sure it’s foul play to point out I only have two friends and am otherwise practically invisible.”  Jo sighs, and takes one last look in the mirror.  Oh well.  At least she looks kinda badass.

            “That’s the spirit,” Mom says, and claps her on the back before going back to doing whatever she was doing before she decided to harass her daughter.

            Jo smiles at herself in the mirror until it looks natural.  _That’s the spirit_.

            Dean Winchester disagrees.  Vehemently.

            “Jo, what the _hell_?” Dean hisses into her ear literally like two seconds after Jo’s made it to her locker.  She grits her teeth and tries not to roll her eyes (mostly because that still hurts a little bit), but she does stuff her bio textbook into her locker with unnecessary force.  Although, she thinks distantly as she hears the spine _crunch_ , she really needs to modify her definition of ‘unnecessary force’ to account for her new superpowers.  Three weeks is apparently not an adequate adjustment period.

            “You know, in polite conversation, we usually begin with _good morning_ ,” she snipes, refusing to look at him.

            Dean snorts.  “Yeah, and since when are _you_ polite conversation?”

            “Fuck off, Winchester.”

            “And you just proved my point.”  Dean reaches out and grips Jo’s chin gently but firmly, turning her to face him.  She can feel her skin burn a bit where his calloused fingertips touch her face, and she really hopes he can’t hear how her heart rate just picked up.  She looks him defiantly in the eye, and immediately regrets it when she realizes just how _close_ he is.  Dean _whoosh_ es out a soft breath when he gets a good look at her face.  “Seriously, Jo, who did this to you?”  There’s a low hint of warning in his voice, and Jo would be totally gaga over Dean being protective of her, except _she frigging hates it when people are protective of her_.  She gets enough of it from Mom, and she can take care of herself, especially now.

            Yeah.  Especially now.

            “I took care of it,” she says, which is totally an answer, and wrenches out of Dean’s grasp.  And it’s true, she thinks, slamming her locker shut, she dusted that vamp.  Just, ya know, _after_ he’d rearranged her face a bit.

            “What’s that supposed to mean?” Dean demands, following her down the hall.

            “What I said, Dean.  I.  Took.  Care.  Of.  It.  Hey, Sam,” she adds, as the younger, shorter Winchester joins them.

            “Hey, Jo,” Sam says slowly, eyeing her face and raising an eyebrow.  He doesn’t say anything, though, and Jo’s grateful for that.  Dean, however, just can’t take a hint.

            “Does your mother know about this?” he asks in what Jo’s pretty sure is supposed to be a threatening tone.

            “Yes,” she responds coldly.  “Now leave me alone.  I can handle myself.”

            Luckily, Dean’s response is cut off by the bell signaling the start of the school day.  Jo takes the opportunity to speed up and half-run into the English classroom.  She makes her way to the back of the class and flings herself into a corner seat.  Judging by the stares and the whispers that follow her there, Mom was totally wrong about people’s ability to pay attention to Jo, and she definitely should’ve tried harder with the makeup.

            Sam isn’t far behind her, though he somehow manages to be more graceful than Jo as he slips unnoticed into his seat.  After a few moments of quiet shuffling-paper sounds, Sam slips Jo a note just as the teacher begins to talk.

            _Dare I ask?_

            Jo suppresses a snort, because of course Sam would phrase it that way.  Careful not to look over, because their English teacher is a fascist about talking in class, Jo shakes her head curtly.  Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Sam purse his lips and – is that the beginning of the puppy dog face? he wouldn’t – but he doesn’t say anything else.  Which is fine, because she’s totally immune to the puppy dog face.

            Totally.

            Which is why she’s completely not thinking about how guilty she feels that she can’t just tell Sam and Dean the truth.  She wasn’t kidding when she told Mom they’re her only friends.  It’s always been that way, since Jo was maybe three years old.

            One of Jo’s earliest memories is of playing in the front yard outside the Roadhouse when she was very small, while Mom and Dad painted windows.  Across the street, Bobby Singer was waiting at the bus stop, tugging on his nicest hat and looking grouchy.  As Jo enacted an elaborate battle between plastic dinosaurs, a long black car pulled up and a man got out.  She paused her game and watched as he took two boys from the back seat, one a couple of years older than her, and one maybe a bit younger.  The boys looked happy to see Bobby, and the older one wouldn’t let go of the little one’s hand.  The dad seemed to argue with Bobby for a bit, and even Mom and Dad stopped working on the windows to pay attention.  The argument ended, and the boys’ father gave his sons a curt goodbye, got back into his car, and drove away.

            John Winchester left his boys in the care of his friend Bobby that day, and then left to go do whatever the hell it was he’d been doing before.  Over the years, Jo has gleaned very little information on the matter of Pop Winchester.  From the few things Dean has let slip, she figures ‘whatever the hell it was’ mostly involves driving around looking for work and probably a lot of booze.  Sometimes John visits his sons; he almost never misses Christmas, and he usually makes it to birthdays.  And when he isn’t there, the boys have Bobby.  And they have the Harvelles.

            Jo officially met Dean Winchester a whole month after he moved in with Bobby, when she punched him in the face for stealing her favorite toy soldier on the playground.  Dad had told her off for that and sent her to her room, but Mom had told her it was good to learn to stand up for yourself.  Dean had just touched his broken lip in awe, burst into a grin, and introduced himself.  He said they could be friends as long as Jo didn’t try to punch Sammy.  Jo said they could be friends if the boys didn’t try to take her stuff.

            It’s been something to the tune of twelve years now, and they’re inseparable.  Dean’s three years older than Jo, and a high school senior.  Sam is a year younger, but like stupid good at school, and so he’s in Jo’s class.  The Winchesters are weird and gross and overprotective, but they’re Jo’s boys.  And sometimes she has to punch one or other of them in the face, and sometimes they steal her stuff, but really it all works out and they’re pretty much her favorite people who aren’t Mom.  (And sometimes, when the fighting with Mom gets really bad and she ends up over at Bobby’s house, curled on the couch in one of Dean’s flannels with Sam’s blanket over her, they even beat Mom out for a couple of hours.)

            Which is why it’s always been so lonely and difficult to lie to them about what’s really out there.  Why it’s gonna suck so much to lie to them about the Slayer thing.  And really, if her face keeps looking like this, how the hell is she going to hide it?

            Jo ends up being so busy brooding that she doesn’t even notice the period has ended until Sam nudges her with his elbow, cueing her to get her shit together.

            “Seriously, though, Jo, are you okay?” Sam asks softly once they’re in the hall.  Before she can get pissed at him, Sam hurries on, “And I’m not talking about your eye – though that’s kinda worrisome itself – I just mean…” He frowns, pursing his lips the way he does when he’s writing an essay and can’t find the right word.  “Lately, you’ve been distracted and not…talking to us about it.  You’d tell us, right?  If something was really wrong?”

            “Yeah, Sam, of course.  I’m _fine_ ,” she insists, for what feels like the thousandth time.

            “If you’re trying to impress Dean, it’s not going to work,” he says flatly, and Jo almost chokes on air.

            “I wouldn’t _beat a dude up_ just to impress your stupid oaf of a brother.”  Sam looks sideways at her with a raised eyebrow, because he is somehow the only one to have caught on that Jo’s been in love with his brother for like, _years,_ so Jo concedes.  “Even if he is pretty.”

            Sam snorts.  “Okay, a lot of girls have talked to me about Dean, and I mean a _lot_ ,” and Jo knows Sam doesn’t mean that to sting, but it does, a little.  “And you are the first one to ever call him pretty.”

            “But he is,” Jo says innocently.

            “Don’t let him hear you say that.  He prefers to think of himself as, ah, _ruggedly handsome_ , I think is the phrase he used.”

            “Oh my _god_.  So not only is he the prettiest asshole in the garrison, he’s the most conceited.”

            “Who’s conceited?” comes Dean’s voice from behind, and Sam and Jo collapse into giggles.  “Wait, is it me?  Dammit, it’s me, isn’t it?  You both _suck_ ,” Dean complains and grabs them both.  After a brief struggle, he knocks Sam’s and Jo’s heads together and shoves them away.  Jo’s black eye is forgotten, and everything is okay again.

            At least it is until fifth period, because Jo seriously cannot catch a break today.  She’s in the library, hoping to find Bobby buried somewhere in the stacks because she needs some book about Shakespeare and feminism for her English essay about _Twelfth Night_.  The high school library is weird – big and crowded, stuffed with books that are crammed into the shelves and stacked in corners in some sort of system that only Bobby can interpret.  It’s certainly not Dewey’s, and it’s not alphabetical.  He refuses to allow the school to make any sort of online record or catalogue for his books, so the only way to find things is to ask Bobby directly.  Once, Sam tried using the card catalogue to find something, and found that half of it was locked, one drawer was just stuffed full of salt, and three drawers had cards written in obscure rune-based languages (at least one of which Jo is certain was demonic in origin).

            “Bobby!” she shouts into the dimly lit room.  She’s pretty sure the dust in the air stirs just at her voice.

            “Quiet down, wouldja?  You’re in a damned library,” comes the irritated answer from somewhere to her left.

            “I know.  Get out here, I need a book for English class.”

            “You’re bossier than your mama,” Bobby grumbles as he strides out from behind a bookshelf.  He’s already holding a thick, dusty, leather-bound book.

            “Not possible,” Jo scoffs, but she’s smiling.  She loves having Bobby as the librarian.  He’s basically like a surrogate dad to her, has been since even before Dad died; and it makes coming to high school every day a _lot_ easier, that’s for certain.  Like a little bit of home.  (It also can mean extra trouble, because Mom often finds stuff out through Bobby that Jo’d otherwise be able to hide, but hey.  It’s a trade-off she’s willing to make.)  “You got anything on Shakespeare and feminism?”

            “Probably.  But you sure you ain’t looking for this?” Bobby asks, and tosses the volume in his hands at her.  He’s lucky Jo has supernatural reflexes now, because she’s able to snatch the heavy tome right out of the air.  Dust poofs out as she grabs the book, and her mind flashes to the way the vamp disintegrated beneath her hand last night.

            She shakes it off and looks at the book.  It’s ancient and a little crumbly, but the elaborate metal clasps hold it together pretty well, and the embossed title is still clear.  When she reads said title, though, Jo’s blood runs cold.  _Nope_ , she thinks, _nope oh no this is not happening_.

            But it is.

            The book is one she’s heard of, seen pictures of, seen referenced in a dozen of Mom’s books.  It’s apparently been missing from the Watcher’s Council library for several decades.  It’s called, simply, _Vampyr_.

            It slides from her hand and falls to the floor with a solid _thud_.

            “Watch it, kid, that book’s worth more than your house,” Bobby says indignantly.

            Eyes wide, she takes a step back from the man who, up until a moment ago, she trusted with her life.  She barely even registers when she falls into a fighting stance in her shock.  “What the _fuck_ , Bobby?”

            Bobby raises one eyebrow nonchalantly.  “Don’t like it?  I’da thought you’d want it, given you’re the Slayer now and all.  I know your Watcher’d want you to have access to this book.”

            “Seriously?  How the hell do you know about this?”

            “I wasn’t born yesterday, ya idjit.  I pay attention.  And when my best friend’s kid – incidentally, my kids’ best friend – starts staking vamps outta nowhere, you best believe I notice.”  He looks long and hard at her, and something in his gruff face softens.  “And here I thought Ellen knew.  Nosy woman, apparently not as all-knowing as she got me believing.  Well, go on, sit down.  We got things to discuss.”

            “No,” she says, and her fighting stance crumbles.  This is just too much.  “Listen, Bobby, I’m on edge _all the time_ now, okay?  Last month, everything was fine, and now I’ve got a destiny to balance with my homework, and last night I had to stake a vampire who punched me in the face for my troubles.  You can’t just spring this crap on me!”  She sighs and runs a frustrated hand through her hair as her brain tries to adjust her _entire worldview_ to account for Bobby knowing about the supernatural and the whole Slayer gig.  (A small voice in the back of her mind reasonably argues that it explains a lot – the card catalogue, for instance.)  Bobby just watches her in silence with uncharacteristic patience.  Finally, she bends down and picks up the stupid book.  Mom’ll want to see it, if nothing else.

            Bobby seems to take this as acceptance of some kind.  “Who is your Watcher, anyway?  Your mom, or that dumbass Council send someone across the pond for ya?”

            Of course he knows Mom’s a Watcher.  “Mom, I guess,” she shrugs.  “We haven’t heard anything from the Council yet, but they’ve gotta know.  They know everything.”

            Bobby nods, and ducks back behind one of the shelves.  Jo considers just high-tailing it out of there and calling Mom, but she can hear the shuffling of books and decides to wait another minute.  When Bobby comes back, he has a stack of three newer books, all paperback, and he shoves them into her arms.

            “For your English paper,” he says, and sure enough, the books are about Shakespeare.  “Can’t have ya fallin’ behind on your schoolwork just because we live on a damned Hellmouth.”

            “Nice word choice there, Bobby,” she says wryly, and he snorts.  As Jo turns to leave, she pauses in the doorway.  “If you knew…Do the boys – do Sam and Dean know?  About any of it?”  _Please say yes_ , a part of her pleads.  _Please say I can let my friends into my life for real_.

            “Nope,” Bobby says, and it sounds oddly sad.  “They’re completely oblivious.  Dunno how they manage it, since people die here every two seconds, but then, John probably dropped ‘em on their heads when they were babies.”

            Jo just nods, even though she isn’t sure if Bobby can see with her back to him, and leaves.  She’s so preoccupied by how _weird_ her life is, even with all things considered, that she doesn’t notice Dean frowning at her as she goes by.

 

            That night at dinner, when Bobby leaves the room to answer the phone, Dean turns to Sam and says in an undertone, “What do you think a Hellmouth is?”

            Sam blinks at Dean over his forkful of salad.  “A what now?”

            “Hellmouth.”

            “Sounds like something out of that show you and Jo are obsessed with.  The one with the two sisters.”

            “What, _Supernatural_?” Dean says, taken aback slightly.  Huh.  Yeah, it kinda does.  “Yeah, it kinda does.”

            “Why?” Sam prods when Dean doesn’t say anything else.

            Dean shakes himself and looks furtively toward the den where Bobby is before he leans forward to answer.  “I, uh, overheard Jo and Bobby talking in the library today.”

            “Dean, were you spying on her?” Sam says in exasperation.  “She can actually take care of herself, you know.  You’ve seen her knife collection.”

            “Yeah, well, fat lotta good that did her face yesterday, “ Dean mutters darkly.  “And anyway, I was just going to talk to Bobby about – “ he cuts himself off.  “College stuff,” he finishes lamely.  Sam raises an eyebrow at that, and Dean pretends not to notice because he _really_ doesn’t want to have this argument right now.  It’s only February, after all; plenty of time for Sam to realize that there is no ‘college stuff.’  Dean clears his throat.  “But they were talking about something we don’t know, about living on a ‘Hellmouth.’  And Bobby made some crack about how people are always dying in Lawrence.”

            Sam looks thoughtful for a moment, and then says nervously, “You don’t think this has anything to do with my dreams, do you?”

            “’Course not,” Dean says hurriedly.  “They’re just dreams, Sammy.  Bobby’s probably just being weird.”

            And, speak of the devil, Dean thinks as Bobby walks back into the room.  “Goin’ out to get some work done,” he says.  It’s his _I’m-avoiding-confrontation-by-working-on-cars_ voice.  “Don’t burn the house down.  Do your homework.  You know the drill.”  And sure enough, “And if either of them Harvelle harpies calls, _I’m not home_.”

            “Yes, sir,” Dean says with a smirk.

            Bobby rolls his eyes and shouts, “And don’t forget to get groceries,” as he slams the door behind him.

            Dean takes another bite of his burger and, with his mouth full, tells Sam, “I’m sure everything’s fine.”

 

            “So Bobby knows,” Jo shouts without preamble, kicking off her shoes and dropping her bag in the doorway of the kitchen.  “Like, everything.”  She looks around, but doesn’t see Mom anywhere, which is weird, since she’s usually in the kitchen from noon onwards on weekdays.

            The Roadhouse opens at four o’clock every afternoon, and stays open until midnight on weeknights and two on Fridays and Saturdays.  Sundays, they stay closed and get some sleep.  It’s hard, running a bar with just Mom, Ash, and Jo.  Keeps them all busy.  For Mom, it means preparing food all afternoon, using moments in between to throw something together for the three of them to eat; it means staying up every night to clean up after the crowd and even later once a month to worry about finances.  For Ash, well…it mostly seems to mean sleeping wherever’s most convenient, waking up when Ellen shouts for him and rocking his mullet through the house.  While Jo’s not _entirely_ clear on what exactly Ash was hired on for, he seems to be most useful as barback and handyman, and for the occasional unwanted fire alarm or covert hacker job.  For herself, living at the Roadhouse means Jo does chores before she does her homework, and helps serve food from four to ten most nights.  Trying to balance that with schoolwork was hard enough; now that she has to go out patrolling almost every night when she gets off work?  Say goodbye to what little social life she had; say a bitter farewell to healthy sleeping habits.

            In any case, the Roadhouse keeps all their schedules fairly predictable, so when Mom’s not in the giant kitchen when Jo expects her to be – when there’s not any indication at all that an effort toward food preparation has been made – it’s kinda cause for concern.

            “Mom?” Jo tries.  Maybe she’s out by the bar or something, she thinks, but before she can check, Mom stalks through the door that leads to the bar with a scowl on her face.  Oh boy.  That’s not good.  That’s the scowl Mom reserves for _the Council fucked up bigtime and I am going to feed their asses to slimy, antlered chaos demons_ , and it’s cranked up to like eleven.  The last time Jo saw that particular look at this strength, Ash had shown up on their doorstep two days later with a laptop, a single duffle bag, and some nasty burn marks on his face.

            “For the _last time_ ,” Mom is saying to someone who clearly isn’t Jo, “ _You are not needed here_.  I know you all like to pretend I don’t exist, but I _do_ , and I am perfectly capable of doing my damn job.  So go home, and tell the other idiots that the Slayer already _has_ a Watcher, thanks for asking.”

            “Now, now Ellen,” comes a smoothly accented voice from behind her, and as the stranger enters the room, Jo almost whistles.  She didn’t know they made Watchers like this; Mom made it out like – Andy notwithstanding – they’re all a bunch of stuffy old British men who don’t take too kindly to the occasional study abroad student at their precious academy (while Mom had graduated with honors to spite them all, Ash had been kicked out in his second year, supposedly for fighting, and come to live at the Roadhouse).

            This guy doesn’t look like that.  Taking him in – he’s maybe Mom’s age, with smile lines, a scruff of a beard, designer jeans and a v-neck tee – Jo can’t really see what Mom’s objecting to.  But then, of course, he keeps talking.

            “It’s not quite that anyone’s questioning your competence, darling.”  Jo and Mom both scowl deeper when he calls her _darling_.  “We do all remember your final performance at the Academy, ah… _vividly_.  It’s just that we feel you may be a bit out of touch with regards to current Slaying news and techniques and so forth.  You have, after all, been inactive on the Council for several years, and your little…hunting operation you have here,” he gestures to the Roadhouse at large, “Which, if I may remind you, is unapproved – it is certainly no substitute for _real_ Council activity.

            “Hello, Joanna,” he adds as an afterthought, turning a grin on Jo that she’s sure would be charming if he weren’t such a _smarmy asshole_.

            Jo responds by smiling back, all innocent teenage girl.  “Who are you, and where do you get off being rude to my mother in _our_ house?”

            “Ah, yes, pardon me for not introducing myself,” he says smoothly as he steps forward and holds out his hand.  “My name is Balthazar, and the Council has sent me to be your Watcher.”

            “Well, hate to break it to you, but the position’s taken,” Jo informs him coldly.  She doesn’t shake his hand.  “Mom’s my Watcher.  Sorry you wasted a trip, but you can go home now.”

            “Unfortunately, Joanna, your mother has not been assigned to your case by a vote of the Council.  I have.  Therefore, I am your Watcher.”

            “Mmm, yeah, not so much,” Jo insists, really starting to get irritated now.  “Listen, I’m pretty sure that since this is, ya know, _my_ destiny, not yours, I get to call the shots.  Given that you guys can’t seem to keep Slayers alive, forgive me if I don’t trust you.  Remember when my predecessor _burned on the ceiling in front of her Watcher_.

            “I trust my mom to have my back.  I don’t trust you.  And I know I’d rather have a Watcher I trust to help me stay safe.  So do us all a favor and _go home_.”

            “Hear, hear,” Mom mutters darkly from where she’s still standing slightly behind Balthazar.

            “I’m afraid I can’t take no for an answer, darling,” Balthazar says with a put-upon sigh.

            Before Jo can snap at him not to call her _darling_ , Ash comes stumbling in from wherever he’s been napping today (ten bucks says it’s the pool table again) and says, “Balthazar?  What the hell you doing on this side of the pond, man?”

            “Ash!” Balthazar says in surprise, and his voice is weirdly warm in comparison to the way he’s been talking to Jo and Mom.  “What an unpleasant surprise!”

            Ash walks right up to Balthazar and wraps his arms around him, clapping him manfully on the back.  “I didn’t know you were visiting, woulda stocked up on beer!”

            “Well, you’ll have plenty of time for that; I’ll be here for quite a while.  I’m to be young Joanna’s Watcher.”

            “Bullshit, Balto, Ellen’s her Watcher,” Ash says without blinking, and Jo’s grateful for it.  Balthazar seems a bit taken aback, since he and Ash are all buddy-buddy.

            “I take it you two know each other?” Jo asks wryly in the brief pause.

            Ash claps _Balto_ on the back again and grins at Jo.  “Hell yeah.  This dude taught my favorite class at the Academy.  He’s got some crazy stories from his own days there, troublemaker like you wouldn’t believe.”

            “Now, now,” Balthazar begins with false humility, but Mom cuts him off.

            “Oh, I believe,” Ellen says darkly and, when Jo looks at her questioningly, “Balthazar and I were in school together.  He was a smarmy asshole then, too, and the most irresponsible idiot to ever graduate from the Academy.  I am _not_ entrusting the safety of my daughter to the same dumbass who ‘accidentally’ torched one of the frat buildings, got half the brothers turned into frogs, and set a plague of locusts on the maths department when he failed pre-calculus.”

            “To be fair,” Balthazar says innocently, “I didn’t technically _do_ any of those things.  My best friend just happened to be a vengeance demon with a tendency toward Biblical punishments.”

            “Balto,” Jo interrupts, because she is one hundred percent _done_ with this conversation, and Balthazar flinches at the nickname.  “I regret to inform you that you have _terrible_ taste in people.  Mom, should I get started on homework or chores?”

            “Chores,” Mom says, cutting off whatever is about to come out of Balthazar’s gaping mouth.  “I haven’t been able to get much done since I was fending off _this_ idiot, so if you can start by cleaning the bar and tables and all?  I gotta get a move on in the kitchen.”  Jo gives her a salute, and Mom turns on Ash.  “Ash, I need you to help me with food today.  It’s a Thursday, so make sure you make plenty of mozzarella sticks for those trivia night idiots at table four.”  Ash snaps out a _yes ma’am_ and saunters back toward the kitchen with a casual wave.  “As for _you_ , Balthazar, you’re welcome to stay for dinner.”

            This last is stated so coldly (full of what Mom likes to call her grandma’s _Southern hospitality_ ) that Jo’s actually almost impressed when Balthazar smiles graciously and says, “Yes, thank you, I think I will.”

            Half an hour later, Mom comes into the bar area where Jo is sweeping while dancing to REO Speedwagon (don’t judge) with a dishtowel and a frown.

            “What’d you say when you first came home?  Something about Bobby knowing something?”

            “Oh yeah.”  Jo pauses, clears her throat.  “He knows everything, apparently.”

            “Everything?” Mom’s voice is sharp, commanding.  It’s funny, the way she can snap from Mom to Watcher in like .2 seconds flat.  “What’s everything, Jo?”

            “Um, things that go bump in the night, that I’m the Slayer, and apparently that you’re a Watcher?  My guess is he’s one of those informal hunter types Dad was, but I kinda forgot to ask.”

            “You forgot,” Mom repeats, raising an eyebrow.

            “I kinda fled the premises,” Jo admits, and Mom groans.

            “That _bastard_ ,” Mom swears, but there’s no heart in it.  If Jo didn’t know any better, she’d almost think Mom were relieved at this little tidbit.  “Alright, you keep doing your thing, I gotta phone call to make.”

            “On the bright side,” Jo calls as Mom turns to go, “He gave me a pretty cool book.  Think you’ll want to see it.”

            “Oh?” Mom turns back around.

            “Yep.  It’s called _Vampyr_.”  She grins as Mom’s face goes from skeptical to shocked to just plain awed.  “Yeah, that one.  It’s in my backpack, if you wanna look at it.  Oh, and Mom?”

            “Yeah, hun?”

            Jo grins (the one Dean calls her “shark grin”).  “Don’t tell Balto.”

           

            As disastrous dinners go, Jo reflects when she’s out patrolling, it probably could’ve been worse.  Like the time two years ago when Ash lit the curtains on fire.  There had been a lot of shouting.  Mom had threatened to ship him back to the Watchers.

            On second thought, she thinks she’d rather have had the shouting back.  She _really_ doesn’t like Balthazar.

            It’s so _stupid_ , Jo thinks, kicking a pebble (again, rethinking her definition of unnecessary force as said pebble slams into a headstone and leaves a dent twice its size).  She and Mom have enough going on right now, trying to fall into new routines, trying not to fight over what it’s safe for Jo to do anymore.  All those years of Mom refusing to let Jo hunt, especially after what happened to Dad, and now neither of them has a choice about it.  Now it’s _fate_ , now it’s _destiny_ , now it’s her _sacred duty_.  And now, of course, _now_ the Council steps up to help.

            Where were they when Jo sat up all night with worry, biting her nails and staring at the phone because Mom was smoking out a nest of vampires who had taken to picking on senior citizens?  Where were they when that demon pretended to be a guidance counselor and starting eating kids’ souls and Mom had to explain the aftermath of the exorcism to Principal Raphael?  Where were they when Dad was ripped apart by Hellhounds?

            For that matter, where the hell was Bobby?

            “What’s a little girl like you doing in a place like this at this time of night?” The cool, teasing voice is much closer than Jo expects, and she practically jumps out of her reverie, almost tripping over a grave.  Whipping around, her eyes fall on a tall, broad-shouldered woman with perfect hair and a bright red smile.  When Jo doesn’t respond right away, the smile gets wider.  “Oh, cat got your tongue?” she teases, advancing on Jo.  Her face shifts – eyes yellowing, forehead creasing, fangs descending – and Jo trips backwards again, fumbling in her coat for her stake.  “Come on, we’ll make it easier for you: in five words or less, what brings you to my part of town?”

            Jo’s hands find the stake and she relaxes, settling back into her stance like she’s practiced since she was little.  She pretends to think for a second, and then, counting the words on her hands – “Out.  For.  A.  Walk.”  Pause.  Smile.  “Bitch.”

            The last syllable she punctuates with a lunge, but the vamp is too quick for Jo, dodging her blow with a snarl.

            “Now, now, that’s not very nice,” drawls another voice from behind, and Jo whirls.  Two more vampires are walking toward her, faces already on.

            “Yeah, well, neither’s trying to eat a girl just taking a stroll,” she retorts while her mind does somersaults trying to calculate how she’s going to get out of here.  _Shit_.

            “Oh, is that what you call it now?” the first vampire asks.  “Because see, to me, this looks an awful lot like a Slayer on patrol.”

            “And Slayers are bad for business, you know,” the second one adds, taking a final step into Jo’s personal space.  She can’t move, she can’t go for one of them, because the others will be on her in less than a second.  All she can do is sit and listen to them _villain-talk her_.

            “And we’ve got _Plans_ , you see,” the third one says, and now Jo is surrounded completely.  “With a capital-P.  Master’s coming to the Hellmouth, and it wouldn’t do to have a Slayer meddling about.”

            “Oh, I get it,” Jo says, leaping on the split-second pause between sentences (seriously, do these guys function with a hivemind or something?).  “So you guys are just lackeys for the real Big Bad, out to badmouth me into submission?”  She makes a futile swipe with her stake, faking them out, trying to get an opening.

            “Oh no, sweetheart,” Vamp #2 says in sickly sweet tones.  “We’re here to take you out.”

            “We’d wait to feed you to the Master,” Vamp #1 murmurs in Jo’s ear and _Jesus when did she get that close_.  “But he thinks Slayer blood’s beneath him.  Not worth his time.”

            Jo takes a deep, shaky breath.  _Well, so I didn’t even last a month_.  “And this conversation isn’t worth mine,” she informs them, and slams her elbow back into the throat of Vamp #1 as she simultaneously thrusts her stake into the heart of Vamp #3 to her right.  This time, her blow is true, and the vamp screams as it crumbles to dust, and Vamp #1 stumbles backwards.

            And then they’re on her.

            There’s a lot of kicking and punching and once Jo feels the scrape of fangs against her shoulder once before she throws herself forward in a truly awesome flip ( _look Ma, no hands_ , she thinks semi-hysterically) and Jo is pretty sure she’s losing.  She’s got the power, and her form’s pretty good, but she’s been Slayer less than a month and isn’t ready to take on two vamps at once after already dusting their friend.  She finally sees an opening to get Vamp #2, really get him, and she takes it, even though she knows it means Vamp #1 will probably snap her neck from behind.  With a strangled battle cry (which she really hopes isn’t her last one, because it is not nearly as epic as she wants it to be) Jo throws all her strength behind her stake and drives it into the vamp’s chest.  She doesn’t look away from his eyes as he bursts into a cloud of dust.

            She whirls around, though, when instead of the killing blow, there’s a shrieking death cry from behind her.  Where Vampire #1 had been standing, there’s now a dissipating cloud of dust and a blonde girl with a ( _really cool_ ) knife.

            Jo tries to say _thank you_ , but what comes out is, “Who the hell are you?”

            The girl snorts and tosses her hair back over her shoulder, tucks the knife back into her belt.  She straightens her leather jacket and smirks.  “I’m the girl who just saved your ass.”

            “Right.  Um, I meant thanks?” Jo tries again, and she can feel the sheepish grin creeping onto her face that she usually reserves for Dean.  It’s probably a leather jacket thing.  She holds out her hand.  “I’m Jo.  What kind of knife can kill vampires?  I’ve never even heard of such a thing.”

            “Ruby,” the girl says, taking Jo’s hand.  It’s cold, but so is the night, and it’s no one’s fault if Ruby’s hand lingers a bit longer in Jo’s than necessary.  “It’s my own knife, and I’m not going to go around handing out its secrets to just anyone.”  Ruby looks Jo up and down.  “Even if she is hot.  And the Slayer.”

            Jo forgets to blush because, “Seriously, was there like, a memo or something?”

            Ruby snorts again.  “Well, see, you fighting off a group of vampires was really my first clue.”

            _Oh_.  And there’s the blush.  “Fair enough,” Jo concedes.

            “Actually, on the subject of said dead vampires – twice dead vampires?  Anyway, those guys.  What did they tell you about the Master?”

            The switch to a let’s-get-to-business tone of voice catches Jo off guard.  “What?  Just some crap about how there’s someone coming to the Hellmouth.  He thinks I’m ‘beneath him,’ apparently.”  Jo narrows her eyes.  “What do you know about it?”

            Ruby shrugs.  “That basically covers it.  The Master of all vampires, coming back to Earth.  I’m here to warn you about him and his army of psychic kids.”

            “His what now?”

            “Because if the Master rises, we’re in bigger shit than those lackeys of his we just ganked would have you believe.  I’m talking like end-of-the-world shit.”

            “We live on a Hellmouth,” Jo points out, wrong-footed slightly by Ruby’s direct yet irritatingly vague warning.  “It’s always end-of-the-world shit.”

            “Not like this, it isn’t,” Ruby says darkly, but then the moment passes, and she grins mischievously.  “Anyway, that’s my duty done.  Nice meeting you, Jojo, I’ll see you around.”  Ruby blows Jo a kiss before turning her heel and winding her way through the headstones.

            “Wait – “ Jo calls, unsure of why.  Ruby pauses, turning half back around. “Who _are_ you?”

            “I’m…”  Ruby pauses, like she’s searching for the word.  “Let’s just say, I’m a friend.”  And she disappears into the night so quickly, Jo could swear she’s a ghost.

            “Yeah, sure,” she mutters skeptically, but her mind holds onto the fact that Ruby just saved her life.  So maybe there’s a bright side to today, after all.

            By the time Jo gets home, the Roadhouse is closed and the last customers are gone.  Ash is nowhere to be seen, which generally means that he’s locked in his room with a case of beers, a significant amount of pot, and a few conspiracy theories with plans to sleep until three tomorrow afternoon (seriously, Ash keeps a similar sleep schedule to the kind of shit Jo hunts).  She would add Balthazar to her mental list of whereabouts, but she really can’t be bothered to care, as long wherever he is also happens to be Not Here.

            Mom’s sitting at her own bar, staring into half a glass of whiskey, bar rag abandoned on the countertop before her, looking vaguely furious.  When she doesn’t even look up at the slam of the door, Jo realizes it’s up to her to start conversation.

            “How was trivia night?” she tries, flinging her readybag into Secret Storage Unit One (aka, that hidden panel behind the bar, under the draft beer).

            “Ah, you know how it is,” Mom says, trying (and failing) to smile.  “Table four got their ass kicked again.  I keep thinkin’ one of these days, they’ll stop putting down Lord of the Rings characters for the sports questions.”

            “But today was not that day?”

            “Not so much.  How was patrolling?”

            “Well, I made a new friend.  I think,” Jo tries, because that’s what Ruby said she was, right?  “Also, we’ve got a Big Bad on the rise, if you choose to believe the lackeys I slayed tonight.  According to their villainous monologue-ing – alas, cut tragically short by yours truly – “ she takes a little bow, and Mom snorts.  “He’s a vampire, calls himself the Master and may or may not be building an army of psychic children.  Whether that means literally children or like his hellspawn or something remains to be seen.”

            “Well, it can remain unseen until tomorrow morning, I think.  You gotta be up for school in a few hours, kiddo.”

            “Five hours.  That’s enough to get by on.”

            Mom looks at her oddly, like she’s sizing Jo up for something.  The exhausted look that comes over Mom’s face makes Jo feel like she’s been weighed and measured and found wanting.  “You’re still just a girl,” Mom says at last, and it’s thick and sad and Jo can’t really handle it.

            “Yeah, Ma.  We all are.”

 

            “I dunno, man, I’m just saying it’s weird, is all,” Dean is saying to Sam when Jo finds them at her locker the next morning.  It seems to be part of an ongoing argument, because Sam responds by throwing his hands in the air in exasperation – almost taking Jo’s head off as she tries to put in her combination.  These boys are a danger to her health.

            “God, Dean, I don’t know why you can’t just be happy about it and stop being so paranoid about everything!”

            “What’s going on, boys?” Jo interrupts.

            “Remember Brady?” Sam asks.  “My best friend when we were kids?”

            “Um, excuse me, I’ve _always_ been your best friend,” Jo jokes, but then frowns in recognition of the name.  “Wait, Tyson Brady?  Wasn’t he the one you made a secret clubhouse with, out in that boarded-up shed on the playground?”

            “Yeah!” Sam’s face lights up at the memory.  “We – “

            “He’s the one who convinced you that girls had cooties and shouldn’t be allowed in the clubhouse and you didn’t talk to me for like two weeks.”

            “Well –“

            “I don’t like Brady,” Jo says decisively.  Dean grins and gives her a _thatta girl_ , which just makes Jo roll her eyes.  “Anyway, why’re you fighting about him?  There’s got to be better people to fight over.”

            “Oh my god, yes that was Brady, what is it with you and Dean today?  It’s like you guys only remember the bad stuff.”

            “Yeah, well, maybe if he hadn’t been such a little douche,” Dean mutters.

            Sam glares.  “We were _six_ , Dean.  Anyway,” he says, turning back to Jo.  “We ran into him at the grocery store last night.  I don’t know how he recognized us, but he came over and said hi and we started talking.  I guess he’s in town on some kind of cross-country trip – he’s looking at colleges already, can you believe it? – and he wanted to stop back for a few days and visit.  We’re gonna hang out after school today, when I get done with debate team.”

            “Well, good for you, Sam-o,” Jo says, clapping him on the back.  Dean looks betrayed.  “It’s good for you to have friends that aren’t me.”

            “Or me,” Dean adds, and it’s kinda pathetic.

            “You don’t count, Dean, you’re just his brother.”

            “Hey!” Dean protests, but Sam’s laughing, and the boys seem like they’re good again.  Honestly, what would they do without her?

            The bell rings and the three of them move automatically into the flow of students down the hall, which, Jo thinks wryly, is some Pavlovian crap.

            “Wait a second,” Dean blurts, stopping abruptly.  He puts a hand on Jo’s shoulder, hauling her back against the flow of the crowd.  “Jo, what happened to your eye?”

            It’s everything Jo can do to not punch Dean in annoyance because, _really, again?_   “Dean, we went through this yesterday,” she says tersely.  “I took care of it.”

            “That’s not what I mean, Jo,” Dean insists, ignoring the complaints of the people trying to walk around him.  He stares intently at Jo’s face, searching it with such intensity that Jo yanks from his grasp, uncomfortable.

            “What the _hell_ , Dean?” she demands, but now Sam is staring, too.

            “Jo,” Sam says slowly, his voice a little off.  “Your eye’s almost completely healed.”

            “What?”  She pokes at it.  It doesn’t hurt.  In fact, she’d forgotten entirely that it’s supposed to be black and blue.  She can still feel a scab over her eyebrow, but that’s all.  Oops.  “Yeah, well, maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked.”

            “It was almost swollen shut yesterday morning,” Sam protests, his voice tinged with concern.

            “I’m a fast healer,” she tries, but Dean shakes his head.

            “No, you’re not.  Last year, when you got a black eye playing dodgeball in gym, it took like two weeks to clear up.”

            “Puberty did wonders for me?”

            Dean just snorts.  “Please.  Like you’ve gone through puberty yet.”

            Okay, that’s going a little too far, Jo decides, and punches Dean in the shoulder.  For the first time since he was about ten, Dean actually reacts to her blow with more than just a roll of his eyes.  He winces and rubs his shoulder tenderly before trying to laugh it off.

            “Damn, Jo, you pack a punch.”

            “I told you I can take care of myself.  Now get going before all three of us are either trampled or late to class, mmkay?”

            The rest of the day passes in a bit of a blur – Jo lied to Mom last night, she totally needs to be getting more than five hours of sleep max.  The problem is figuring out how to do that with trig homework and patrolling and English papers and helping Mom man the Roadhouse.  She passes Bobby in the hallway during eighth period and he squeezes her shoulder gently as he goes.  He’s still got a lot of explaining to do, of course, years’ worth.  But for now…  She thinks of the way Mom’s face, Mom’s voice softened at the news that Bobby was in the know.  Maybe, for right now, it’s okay to just be relieved to have someone else on her side.

            She stays after school to work on her stupid English essay (although okay, Viola is totally a BAMF and whoever writes this off as a comedic love story is gonna get their ass handed to them at full Slayer strength), but ends up falling asleep on her desk.  She doesn’t realize it until there’s a hand gently shaking her shoulder.

            “Uh, Jo?  It’s Jo, right?”  The voice is unfamiliar, and Jo finds herself blinking up at a face that she only recognizes in the vaguest sense of maybe having seen it in the hallways before.

            “What?” she says groggily, sitting up.  The kid practically leaps backward, and she frowns at him.  He’s short, scrawny, with the scraggly beginnings of a beard that he forgot to shave.  She’s pretty sure he’s a fellow sophomore, someone always hanging at the edges of the clique Anna Milton runs.  He bites his lip and looks around the (completely empty, even devoid of Bobby) library before he talks again.

            “I’m Chuck.  I dunno if you remember me?  We had detention together once.  Um…”  He trails off when she just raises her eyebrows at him, but shakes himself and starts over.  “Guess not.  Okay, well, anyway, there’s something I need to talk to you about?  Like now.  It’s important.”

            “Okaayyyy,” she says, drawing out the word like a question.

            “It’s about the Slayer thing.  And the Master rising thing.  And the –“

            “Oh my _god_ ,” Jo interrupts in exasperation.  “Is there no such thing as a friggin _secret_ in this town?”

            “Well, okay, to be fair, I totally didn’t want to know, okay, about any of this crap,” Chuck says with no small amount of irritation.

            “Then why _do_ you know?”

            “Okay, don’t get mad, but sometimes I…overhear things.  In my head.”  And then, like he can hear Jo internally freaking out over Ruby’s remembered warning, Chuck hurriedly adds, hands up defensively, “I’m not one of the Master’s psychics, promise!  I think they’re just starting to be psychic, now that he’s I dunno, on the rise or whatever.  I’ve had this my whole life.”

            “What exactly is ‘this?’”

            “Um, I think I might be some kind of prophet?  I dunno, I haven’t exactly done a lot of research on it, the whole thing freaks me out.  But I hear about things before they happen, like conversations between…I don’t even know what they are, gods or something, probably.  I just call them the Powers That Be.  And they’re big on the psychic kids right now.  I guess the Master rising would kinda be like a chain reaction sorta thing.  Like, you know, end of the world.”  He giggles nervously.

            “Awesome.  Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?  Because trust me, I have had it up to here with random people telling me about how dangerous the Master is, okay?”

            “Oh, no I’m here to talk to you about your friend Sam,” Chuck says, like that’s all the explanation in the world.

            Jo’s blood runs cold.  No.  Not Sam, too.  It’s bad enough this life has eaten away at hers and her mom’s and apparently Bobby’s, but the Winchesters are supposed to be _safe_.  “What about Sam?”

            “His friend – Brady? – he’s bad news.”  The part of Jo’s brain that sounds a lot like Dean grumbles, _I coulda told you that_.  “I don’t know exactly what that means, though.  All I heard was that he’s been sent to ‘take care of Sam.’  I don’t think they’re gonna kill him,” he adds, because something in Jo’s face must show her panic at the thought.  “Just, I think, get him on their side, or something?  He’s one of the psychic kids, I know, and they want him bad.”

            “Sam’s psychic?”  Jo wracks her brain.  He’s been complaining about nightmares recently, looking tired and haunted and brushing it off whenever Jo asks, but other than that…Sam?  Psychic?  With the Master after him in the guise of Brady.  “Awesome.  Just, awesome.”

            “I just…I didn’t know who else to tell.  And it’s your job to save people now, right?”

            “Something like that,” Jo agrees grimly, and takes out her phone.  She’s already dialing as she remembers to say, “Thanks, Chuck.”

            “Anytime?”  He laughs nervously again.  “I’m gonna…go, I think.”

            “This conversation isn’t over!” she calls after him, but the phone is already ringing in her ear.

            _“Hey, Jo,”_ Sam picks up after the third ring, but his voice sounds odd, strained.

            “Hey, Sammy,” Jo says carefully.  “What’re you up to?”

            _“Hanging out with Brady, remember?  I met him after school.”_

            “Right, that old brat.”  Jo fakes a laugh.  “Where are you guys?  I wanted to come drop off that book you lent me before I head home and get swallowed alive by the Roadhouse crowd.”

            _“Oh, don’t worry about it.  I can get it from you later.”_   Sam going along with her lie about the book is her confirmation that he’s in trouble.  She’s impressed by how well he seems to be holding it together, how quickly he’s picking up her code.  _“Besides,”_ he adds with strange deliberation.  _“You remember Brady – no girls allowed.”_

            And oh.  _Oh_.  “Right, of course.  Tell him his misogyny is as endearing as it ever was.”  Her mind scrambles for anything else to say, any way to let Sam know she’s coming to rescue him, but Sam speaks first.

            _“Will do.  I gotta go, but will you do me a favor and tell Dean I don’t need him to pick me up?  Tell him, there’s plenty for us to do – it’s a funky town.”_

            “Okay, I’ll pass it on.  Word for word, like a sacred message,” Jo says, trying to keep her tone light.  “Later, Sam.”

            _“Later.”_

            As soon as she hangs up, she’s dialing Dean and leaving the library.  It takes everything she has not to run.

            “Dean, I need your help,” she says as soon as Dean picks up the phone.  She hates doing this, doesn’t want to bring Dean into it, but she doesn’t have a choice.  (And let’s be realistic here – Sam’s already involved, which means that Dean inevitably will be as well.)

            _“Hello to you, too, Jo.  So nice to hear from –“_

            “Sam’s in trouble,” she cuts him off, and that shuts Dean up.

            _“What?”_ he demands sharply.  _“What’s happening?  How do you know?  Is he hurt?”_

            “I’m not sure exactly what’s going on yet, though it’s got to do with Brady.  I don’t think he’s hurt, but I don’t know how long that’ll last.”

            _“What’s going on, Jo?”_

            “He wanted me to tell you something: he doesn’t need you to pick him up, because he’s sure they’ll have plenty to do – after all, Lawrence is a _funky town_.”

            _“Shit_ , _”_ Dean says with a sharp intake of breath.  Jo can hear noises in the background – the jingle of keys, the slam of a door.  She’s sure that any moment she’ll hear the rumble of the Impala’s engine turning over.

            “Yeah,” she agrees.  When they were younger, Dean worried obsessively over Sam (still does, really, but he’s gotten better at hiding it, at being at least a little bit reasonable about it).  One night, there was some special on the news about child abduction or something, and Dean decided that he and Sam needed to have a code word.  It had to be something simple, he said, something they could use without making it suspicious, but not something they would normally say either.  And they could only use it in the worst of emergencies.  Jo, being practically their sister, had been brought in on the secret word, as had Ellen and Bobby, though the adults found it more amusing than anything else.

            They’d never had to use it, of course, and Jo had forgotten it entirely until just now when Sam had spoken it over the phone at her: _funky town_.

            “I need you to give me a ride,” she tells Dean, mostly because she knows he’s already leaving his house – yep, there’s the engine.  Taking a deep breath, she adds, “I think I know where they are.”

 _“Tell me_. _”_

            “No.”  She can imagine the anger on Dean’s face when she says it, the way his mouth snaps into a thin line.  “Dean, trust me, I can’t have you go running after Brady on your own.  You need me on this.”

_“Like hell I do.  You’ve already got beaten up once this week, I don’t need you throwing yourself into whatever Brady’s up to.  Now tell me where they are.”_

            “Dean, you have no idea what’s going on here, you’re not doing this without me.  I’m at school still, I’ll meet you in the lower lot in five minutes.”

 _“Dammit, Jo –“_ but she hangs up on him, cutting him off before he can deliver some vaguely chauvinistic overprotective bullshit.  She’s got five minutes to stock up on weapons, which she doesn’t have because _you don’t need to keep an armory in your locker, Miss Harvelle, this institution is perfectly safe_.  She’s got her dad’s little pigsticker in her boot, pure iron, but that won’t do much if Brady’s what she thinks he is – another vampire.  Her hair ribbon hardly counts, that’s purely defensive, not really a weapon at all.  The holy water in her gym bottle will slow him down, and she’s got her silver cross around her neck like always, but she needs a stake at the very least.  A machete would be nice.  But where the hell is she going to find something like that in a friggin high school?  If she were looking for salt, she could at least go to the lunch room or to that creepy-ass card catalogue in the library, but –

 _The library_.

            “Bobby, you better have something good for me,” she murmurs under her breath, and rushes back the way she came.

           By the time Dean comes screeching into the parking lot, she’s got two stakes, a small battleaxe, and a machete.  She’s going to kiss Bobby’s gorgeous, hairy face the next time she sees him.

           “What the hell – “ Dean says when he sees what she’s holding.

           She slides into the car and slams the door with a shrug.  “Consider it on loan from Bobby.  They were in a hidden panel in the library.  He has some really impressive weaponry in there, actually; remind me to ask him about the crossbow later,” she adds thoughtfully.

           Dean looks like she just slapped him with a fish.  “Crossbow?  Bobby has a crossbow in the library?” he repeats faintly.

           “Yes.  Now drive.  Head to the playground.”

           “Is that where Sam is?”  Dean puts the car in drive even as he asks, concerns about library weapons apparently overridden.

           “I’m pretty sure, yeah.  Sam’s really good at this coded communication shit, you should be proud.”

           “Great,” Dean growls.  “Jo, what the hell is going on?  I know you don’t like Brady, but if Sam’s begging funky town that pretty much means it’s time to call the cops.  And you know how I feel about cops.”  She does indeed know how Dean feels about cops.  Dean and the sheriff have a disturbingly merry rivalry going on, wherein she can’t prove anything and Dean has the least convincing shit-eating grin Jo’s ever seen.  All the same, there are some members of the local police force that (cough, Gordon Walker, cough), well, let’s just say that everyone’s happier when Dean avoids them.

           “Trust me, Dean, they’re not gonna be able to do much here.”  She pulls a thin ribbon from her bag, deceptively pink but lined with terrifically sharp spikes of alternating silver and iron.  She thinks about how to explain the situation to Dean without him thinking that she’s _absolutely insane_ while she braids the ribbon into her hair.  (She learned in elementary school that people – especially boys – like to grab her hair in a fight.  Working off the assumption that the creepy-crawlies would have a similar tendency, Jo and Mom brainstormed up this little beauty.  If the iron and silver don’t get them, well, no one likes a handful of spikes.)  “We’ve got to handle this carefully because there’s something bigger at play here than just Sam –“

           “There’s nothing more important than Sam,” Dean snaps, and Jo shoots him a glare he doesn’t see because his eyes are actually on the road for once.

           “You think I don’t know that, Dean?  But if we don’t do this right, Brady won’t be the end of it.  Something’s going on with Sam,” Dean’s face twitches slightly.  “And I think you know it, don’t you?”

           Dean hesitates.  “Does this have something to do with his nightmares?”

           “What kind of nightmares?” she demands.  “He won’t tell me.”

           “He – he has these dreams, these nightmares – a couple weeks ago, there was one about this girl who got killed in a fire, the same way our mom died.”  There’s something about the way Dean says it that means there’s something he’s not telling her.  “And Sam looked up her name, like obsessively googled this chick.  And then last week, she turns up in the papers in California, dead in a fire.”

           “Ava,” Jo realizes, the grief still fresh in her mind.  “Sam dreamed about Ava.”

           “You know her?” Dean asks, surprised.

           “Not really.  Okay, so Sam really is psychic.  That helps narrow it down.”

           “There’s no such thing as psychics, Jo,” Dean says, but his tone tells Jo he’s been questioning that a lot recently.  Which will hopefully make this next bit go over a bit smoother.

           “Yes, there is.  There are a lot of things out there that shouldn’t exist, and Sam’s psychic death visions are the least of them.”  She takes a deep breath.  “And I’m gonna tell you right now, the likelihood that Brady is human is basically slim to none.”

           “What?”

           They’re getting close; Jo doesn’t have time for the full oops-sorry-monsters-are-real spiel.  Just the ground rules, then.  She looks directly at Dean for this.  “Brady probably isn’t trying to kill Sam.  He needs him – or, rather, Brady’s boss needs him.  Don’t ask me for what, I’m not sure yet.  But that doesn’t mean he won’t try to kill us, especially if he is what I think he is.”

           “And what’s that?” Dean demands, in a voice tight as his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.

           “A messenger,” she says immediately and then, thinking of the vampires from last night the worshipful way they spoke of this Master character, she adds, “Probably a zealot.  And almost definitely a vampire.”

           “A vampire,” he repeats flatly, pulling in to the empty lot behind the elementary school.  It’s getting on sunset, and the playground ahead is empty as well.  Off to the side, tucked in some overgrown weeds underneath an overhanging oak, is a small, worn-down shed.  _That’s it_ , Jo thinks, shrugging off her coat and getting herself into battle mode, but Dean’s not done.  “Jo, please tell me that’s code for something.”

           “Yes, Dean,” she says snidely.  “It’s code for ‘bloodsucking fiend that bursts into flame when it hits the sunlight.’”

           “Fuck,” he mutters.

            “Yeah, basically,” Jo agrees.  “Get out of the car, we need to do this before full dark, or we’ll be in real trouble.”

            Dean does as she says, clambering out of the Impala and coming to stand next to her.  She hands him the machete, and he takes it with hands that only shake slightly.

            “Okay, so this is for you to use _only_ as a last resort of self-defense.  Do not, under any circumstances, go after Brady yourself.  Let me handle him.  If you have to fight him, take his head off.  No hesitation, just do it.”

            “Jo, we can’t just walk in there and _kill_ some kid –“

            “He’s got Sam.”  Dean’s face does something strange, and she nods.  “That’s what I thought.  And one last thing – you do what I tell you, _whatever_ I tell you, or you’ll get yourself – and your brother – killed.  Capiche?”

            Dean takes a deep breath.  “Capiche.”

            “Let’s go.  Don’t bother being quiet, likelihood is Brady’s expecting me.”

            Up close, the shed is even more worn down, the paint peeling, the window boarded up with rotting wood.  Caution tape hangs in ribbons from where it once clearly crisscrossed the door; Brady must have ripped it off whenever he got there.  There’s moss on the crooked shingles, and the sign that Brady pinned to the door as a child hangs at an odd angle, the paint barely legible ( _no girls allowd)_.  The lock, like the tape, is broken, snapped in two.

            With one last look at Dean, Jo kicks it open, Sparta-style, because really there’s nothing like a good entrance to get her Slayer game into gear.

            There’s a hissing sound and sudden movement as someone moves back from the weak sunlight streaming in the doorway.  Directly before her, Sam is sitting in the remains of a wooden chair, stiff and uncomfortable but not obviously restrained.  His eyes widen with relief when he sees Jo and Dean.

            “Heya, Sammy,” she says cheerfully.  “Where’s your buddy?”

            “I’m right here, Slayer,” a cool voice says from her right, and the door slams shut behind them.  The light’s dim, but Jo can still see, something she attributes to a small grouping of candles on the floor in the middle.  _Useful_ , she thinks, and catalogues the information for later before turning to face Brady.

            He looks young, _very_ young, in a way that’s so wrong she’s amazed Sam and Dean didn’t notice it last night.  Blame it on shitty grocery store fluorescents, probably.  He likely got turned a couple of years ago, which makes her shiver.  Most vamps know better than to turn someone that young.  It never goes well.  Blonde, smiling, and just as bratty-looking as she can remember, this is definitely Brady.

            “Brady, so nice to see you again.  I’m gonna need Sam back now.”

            “I’m afraid I can’t do that, _Slayer_.”  He says the word with such disdain.  Jo can’t help but think about last night – the Master thinks Slayers are beneath him, and apparently he teaches his minions to think the same.  “He belongs with us and he knows it.  As do you.”

            “You really think I’m going to let Sam hang out with you, Brady?  You were a bad influence on him long before you grew fangs.”

            “You don’t really get a say in this, do you?  The Master is coming, and he’s coming for his children, and when he gets here, Sam will be ready for him.  We’ll be ready for him.”

            “You sound like a cult,” Dean growls, but his voice isn’t coming from behind Jo anymore.  No, of course not, because Dean is an idiot, and he’s used their brief conversation as a way to sneak around behind Brady, and is raising his machete.

            Before he can even prepare to swing, Brady is whirling around, face twisting into ridges and fangs and yellowed eyes.  Distantly, Jo hears Sam scream, _NO_ , but she’s already in motion.

            Her kick takes out Brady’s knees and he trips, dropping to one knee.  Dean stumbles backwards, thrown off by falling vampire, and Jo steps forward, axe whirling in her hands.  Brady’s fast, though, faster than she’s used to (younger vampires tend to be that way, all annoyingly spry and youthful), and he’s back on his feet before she can deal the killing blow.  He’s on her in a moment, swinging wildly enough that Jo dodges and blocks easily.  Brady is reckless, unskilled.  But still, she realizes (as he manages to grab and twist her right arm so hard she lets go the stake pulled from her belt loop), he’s fast enough to be dangerous.  (Long-nailed fingers rake her arm, leaving bloody tracks and a torn sleeve.)  She has to get the Winchesters out of here.

            In one motion, she (dodges a blow, whipping herself around so fast that her silver-spiked braid smacks Brady in the face and he hisses in pain before she) sweeps her foot behind her, knocking over the small collection of candles providing the dim light.  (Thank god for the small favor of vampire traditionalists, who forgo flashlights in favor of the creepy ritualistic atmosphere provided by candlelight.)

            The wooden shed is old, rotted, and – most importantly – dry as a bone.  As the hot wax spills over the floorboards, scorching a rainbow pattern into the knotted wood, the flames flicker and catch on every splinter, flaring to greater life.  Brady doesn’t notice right away, too preoccupied with trying to swipe at Jo with one hand, the other clutched to his right eye (she’s getting better at this braid-swinging thing; either that, or her dumb luck is improving).  Dean, however, does notice.

            It’s the cruelest thing she could do, Jo knows, setting fire to the place to chase Dean out.  His mom died in a fire when he was little, and he’s been terrified of them since.  Well, not terrified of fire, so much – he’s terrified of what the next fire will take from him.  He hides it well; Jo’s pretty sure she’s the only one who knows.  That she’s the only one he’s told about that night, the only one he’s told about how he still dreams about it.  Which makes what she does next probably the worst thing one friend has ever done to another.

            “Dean!” she shouts over Brady’s hissing and the crackle of the flames.  She takes her eyes off her enemy, just for a second, to look Dean in the face.  “Take your brother outside as fast as you can.”

            The words hit him like a physical blow, and he springs into immediate action, rushing over to Sam as Jo turns back to the vampire.  She doesn’t have to look far – he’s two inches from her face, and then there’s a hand on her neck, holding her still, cutting off her air.  (He’s too close for Jo to be able to swing the axe with any force, nevermind without risking chopping her own self in the face.)

            “You’re done for, Slayer,” he spits in her face.  This close, she can see that his eye looks burnt, raw and red and sealed shut.  (He backs her up to the wall of the shed, pushing her by the throat.  She fumbles at her belt.)  “The Master is rising, and the time for petty inconveniences like you is over.  Your power is nothing compared to Sam or the other children.  They are _chosen_ , and will rise in your place.  You and Dean and their father – all of you trying to _protect_ Sam – you’re just in the way.”

            “Haven’t you heard, Brady?” she gasps out (fingers closing on exactly what she needs).  “I’m chosen, too.”  And she thrusts her final stake straight through his heart, until nothing remains of him but an echoing scream and the taste of ash on her tongue.

            Ash.  Fire.  Right, the shed is still burning down around her, she remembers, and stumbles back toward the door.  Outside, Dean is standing, face hard, nose smudged with ash, looking at Jo like she’s a stranger.  He’s supporting Sam, who looks pale even in the gathering gloom and who won’t meet Jo’s eyes.

            “Jo,” Dean says, his voice a feeble attempt at levity.  “You got some ‘splainin’ to do.”


	2. Episode Two. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some 'splainin is done, research parties occur, romantic drama is referenced (it's got to be a leather jacket thing), and everything is vampires, actually.

            The aftermath of the fight with Brady, as could probably be expected, is not nearly so much fun as the fight itself.  It’s like a Family Meeting from hell, like everyone’s failed their report cards and it’s somehow, Jo thinks dismally, all her fault.

            They’re gathered around the table in the Harvelle’s kitchen, an old, battered thing with a devil’s trap carved on the underside.  Dean and Sam sit squashed together at one end, Sam still a bit pale.  Dean’s angled himself so that he’s slightly in front of Sam, like he’s trying to stand between his brother and whatever Jo has to say.  (She doubts Dean even knows he’s doing it, doubts Sam even notices.  It’s just the way the two of them work.)  Mom, meanwhile, sits at the head of the table, absentmindedly fiddling with a bar rag.  She’s had to leave Ash in charge of the front-of-house nonsense for a while, and it shows – every loud noise, every shout from the bar has her flinching in case it’s (another) explosion.  Bobby is sat to Mom’s right, looking grouchy at having been dragged over here (actually, Jo’s not entirely sure how or why he _has_ been dragged over here).  And Jo, Jo is on Mom’s left, tugging at her silver cross and clearing her throat, trying to figure out how the hell to start this conversation.

            Bobby has a flask full of whiskey.  Jo hardly thinks that’s fair.

            “So,” Dean says at last, voice tense.  “Vampires.”

            Mom starts laughing, and Sam joins in, slightly hysterical.  Even Bobby’s frown breaks and he lets out a small chuckle.  Which leaves Dean and Jo staring at each other humorlessly across the table, somehow the only ones who missed the joke.

            “Yeah,” Jo replies, in a tone that shuts everyone up pretty quickly.  “Vampires.  And werewolves, and shapeshifters, and demons, and ghosts.  Oh my.  They’re all real, and it’s my job to kill ‘em.”  She thinks that pretty much about sums it up.

            “Psychics?” Sam asks quietly, gaze dropping to the table.

            “Psychics,” Jo confirms gently.  “Good and bad.”  Mom frowns at Sam, but doesn’t say anything.

            “Vampires,” Dean repeats, like he doesn’t quite get it.  _Come on, Winchester_ , Jo thinks, _I know you’re smarter than this_.  “In _Lawrence_.”

            “More common than you’d think, actually,” Mom supplies.  “We’re at the center of a mystical convergence, something called a Hellmouth.  Lots of energy here, all focused on one spot in town: Stull Cemetery.”

            “Which, lemme guess, is actually haunted?” Dean demands, with what doesn’t quite manage to be skepticism.

            “Bigtime,” Jo confirms.  “But not just that.  Things _gather_ here.  Vampires, yeah, ghosts, sure.  But not just them.  All the creepy-crawlies want to take a bite of the Hellmouth’s energy.  Or, depending on the day of the week, to end the world.”

            “Day of the week?” Sam asks weakly, like he’s trying to guess if it’s a joke.

            It mostly is, but Jo can’t really resist the opportunity, so she looks straight at him and says solemnly, “Tuesdays are a problem.”

            “Awesome.”

            “Mhmm.”

            “How is it that people don’t know about this crap?” Dean demands with a frustrated gesture to the whole kitchen.  “I mean, if there’s monsters just running around killing people, why hasn’t everybody noticed?”

            “Because they’re damn stupid,” Bobby says with a pointed look at his sons.  Dean has the good grace to look embarrassed.

            Ellen shoots Bobby a Look and continues, “Because people don’t wanna believe.  They see a thing, they rationalize it, they forget it.  And then they tell stories about it around campfires and laugh it off over a beer or ten.”

            “So why do you guys know?”

            “None of your damn business,” Bobby snaps, which really isn’t fair, and Mom shoots him another Look.  One of these days, Bobby is gonna earn himself a Stern Talking To about his involvement in the life, and Jo so does not want to be around for _that_ little bit of family drama.

            “There are folks out there we call hunters, people like Bobby here.  They’re civilians, usually lost someone to something evil.  My daddy was one, he raised me in the life.  I was called – I went off to school for magic in England, a place called the Watchers’ Academy.  Watchers are trained specially to look out for a girl called the Slayer.”

            “That’s what Brady called Jo,” Dean interrupts.

            Mom raises an eyebrow.  “Tyson Brady?  Sam’s friend from when y’all were kids, the one with the bad attitude?”

            “Worse attitude, once he got all undead,” Jo supplies helpfully.

            “Huh.  Anyways, yes.  Jo is the Slayer now.”

            “But she wasn’t always,” Dean says.  “We would’ve noticed by now.”

            “You sure about that, boy?” Bobby asks, and Dean glares.

            “Three weeks ago,” Sam says.  He finally looks up and catches Jo’s eye.  “Right?  That’s when you started acting all weird.”

            Jo’s surprised – pleasantly so – that he noticed, and she nods.  “After Ava was killed, the power passed to me.  There’s only ever one Slayer at a time, but there’s always gotta be a Slayer.”

            “Why’s that?” Dean asks, genuinely curious.  “And whaddya mean, ‘the power passed to you?’  What are you, some kind of superhero?”

            Jo raises her eyebrows at him.  “Did you not _see_ me kick Brady’s sorry vampiric butt?”

            “No, because you lit the place on fire,” Dean snaps.

            “Fair.  Well, I did.  Anyway, yeah, superhero.”  Jo laughs bitterly.  “Something like that.  I get superstrentgh, agility, improved healing, and, so I’m told, the occasional prophetic dream.  The story goes like this: _In every generation, there is a Chosen One.  She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness.  She is the Slayer.”_   She uses her Ominous Slayer Business Voice for that last bit, and it has an effect.  Sam, at least, looks impressed.

            Dean, well, not so much.  “So what, they just throw superpowers at some random teenage girl and say, congratulations, you’re now in a death match with every evil thing out there, good luck?  That’s – it’s crazy!  It’s a friggin death sentence!”

            “Yeah, that’s what I said,” Jo says with a wry smile.  One of the reasons she loves Dean is because he just _gets it_.  “But hey, it’s destiny.”

            “I don’t believe in that _destiny_ crap,” Dean grumbles.

            “Well, that doesn’t help me any.  At the end of the day, I’ve still gotta save the world and everyone in it.  You’re welcome, by the way,” she adds pointedly.  Really, you’d think at some point one of these idiots would have given her the ‘you have saved our lives we are eternally grateful’ speech.  Jeez.

            “Yeah that,” Dean says dismissively.  And that’s gratitude for you.  “What did a vampire want with Sammy?”  Because Dean has Priorities.  And to hell with Hellmouths and Slayers and Tuesday apocalypses, he needs to know how to protect Sammy.

            “That’s a good question,” Mom says calmly, and turns to Sam, who seems to find the grain of wood in the table more interesting than ever before.  “Sam?  Got anything to say on the subject?”

            “Um,” Sam says.  They all wait for a solid minute, but nothing comes.

            “Well, that really clears things up,” Bobby grunts, and takes another swig from his flask.

            “Hey,” Dean snaps, anger flaring, as always, in defense of Sam.  “Jo just said that it’s her job to _kill_ all this supernatural shit,” (“Language, Winchester,” Mom sighs) “It’s not like he’s just gonna ‘fess up to – “  Dean cuts off abruptly, apparently realizing that he’s implicating Sam anyway.

            “Being psychic?” Jo fills in for him.  “Don’t worry, boys, I’m not gonna go all Terminator on you just because you’re having nightmares.”

            “They’re not nightmares if they come true, Jo,” Sam blurts.  “I mean, I – what if I – what if it’s me, somehow, killing people –“

            “Ava’s death wasn’t your fault,” Jo interrupts firmly.  “She knew what was out there, she knew what we’re up against.  It just – it caught up to her in the end.  Always does.”

            “Then why am I seeing it?  Why did I have to watch it happen?” Sam’s voice is cracked, desperate, and Jo wonders how long he had to stay there, trapped by sleep, watching Ava burn.  Wonders about what else he’s had to see.  “I mean, he says it’s important, tells me to pay attention, but when I ask what’s happening, all he’ll tell me is _soon_.”

            Dean and Jo both snap to attention at that, though for different reasons, Jo expects.  Dean’s protectiveness is probably kicking into overdrive at the thought of a _person_ he can blame, something specific he can take care of in order to keep his brother safe.  As for Jo, well, she’s kinda in Slayer mode and out for information at this point, and this is the most Sam has ever revealed about his nightmares.

            “Who, Sam?  Who’s telling you this?” Jo demands.  She has the sneaking suspicion, though, that she already knows the answer.

            “I – I don’t know his name,” Sam says, looking up at her again.  “I just call him the man with the yellow eyes.”

            “Yellow eyes.  Is he human?”

            Sam shrugs.  “I thought so, at first.  But sometimes, his face gets – it looks like Brady’s did, when he attacked you.”

            “Vampire?” asks Dean.

            “Vampire,” Jo agrees grimly.  “Ten bucks says it’s this _Master_ guy everyone keeps babbling at me about.”

            “Master?” Bobby asks.

            “New Big Bad.”  Jo shrugs.  “All the local vampires are like, in love with him or something.  I’m gonna read up on him tomorrow, see what I can find.  But until then…”

            “Until then, I, at least, need to get back to work,” Mom finishes for her, as another suspicious noise comes from the bar.  She pushes back her chair and tosses the bar rag over her shoulder.  Sparing Sam and Dean a sorry, sympathetic glance, she adds, “I’m sorry you had to find out like this, boys.  I never wanted you caught up in this nonsense.  But I’m glad you’re okay.”

            “Thanks to Jo,” Sam says, and smiles slightly.

            “Thanks to me,” Jo repeats brightly.  It’s nice.  Usually the people she saves from the creepy-crawlies just run away screaming instead of sticking around to display any decent amount of gratitude.  It’s a thankless job, really.

            Mom smiles at them all and then, at the sound of yet another _crash_ , she rolls her eyes and strides from the room yelling, “ _Ash_!”

            “So, what now?” Sam asks hesitantly, when the silence threatens to stretch into awkwardness.

            “Now?” Jo asks, raising an eyebrow.  “Well, you two need to go home and do like, homework, or whatever it is you losers do.  Bobby can fill you in on whatever other questions you might have about…stuff.  Sam, I’ll find out all I can about this Master guy and let you know what I dig up.  I promise, I’m not gonna let him hurt you.”  Sam quirks a slight smile at that.  “But I need you to tell me about these dreams of yours, ‘kay?  Go home tonight, write down everything you can remember.  Keep a dream journal of the things the yellow-eyed man shows you.  It might help me figure out what he’s planning.”  Sam nods.

            “What’re you gonna do once you figure it out?” Dean asks.  There’s a sharpness to his voice that Jo doesn’t particularly like.

            “My job,” she replies shortly.  “I’m gonna find the bastard and kill him, before he ends the world.”

            “Is that actually a real possibility?” Sam asks, voice pitched slightly higher than normal.

            “According to a friend of mine,” Jo says with a shrug.  “Like we said, it’s a Hellmouth.  Apocalypses happen every decade or so, I guess.”

            “That’s…not alarming at all,” Sam decides faintly.  Bobby snorts.  (So many valuable contributions to the conversation tonight.)

            “I want in,” Dean says firmly.

            _Oh, no_.   “On what, the apocalypse?” Jo asks, narrowing her eyes.  She knows where this is going.

            “On killing this Master guy.”

            “No.”

            “Jo – “

            “Dean, _no_.  Look, I know you want to help, and I’m sure your overprotectiveness of Sam is what’s talking here, but trust me when I say you can’t handle this.”

            “So teach me,” he demands.  Oh no.  No, no, no.  He’s got his stubborn face on.  Jo knows that face all too well.  Somehow, it’s much less attractive when she’s on the receiving end.  Huh.

            “No.  You can’t – it’s not like you can just find out there are monsters and then decide to chase after the Big Bad!”

            “You said there are civilian hunters.  Hell, Bobby’s sitting right here!”

            “Don’t drag me into this, boy.  Joanna’s right,” Bobby says, raising a hand in protest.  “Nobody needs you becoming a hunter when you’re still in high school.”

            “What about Jo?” Dean demands.

            “Jo doesn’t have a choice,” Jo retorts.  “You do.”

            “No, I don’t,” he snaps.  “This thing, this yellow-eyed man, the _Master_ , whatever – he killed a girl by pinning her to the ceiling and burning her alive – “

            “I know, Dean, but that’s not your responsibility – “

            “Which is the same way my mom died,” Dean says over her.

            Silence falls immediately, the only noises the distant buzz of the Roadhouse crowd and something that might be Mom yelling at Ash.

            “So it’s gotta be the same thing, right?” Dean bowls onward, willfully oblivious to the bomb he just dropped.  “The same vampire or demon, whatever – it’s the same one.  And now he’s gunnin’ for Sammy.  You gotta let me in on this one, Jo.  This is my _family_.”

            “John said you didn’t know about that,” Bobby says slowly.  “Said you didn’t remember.”

            “It was _Mom_ , Bobby,” Dean snaps.  “Not the kinda thing a kid forgets.”  He frowns.  “Wait, Dad knows?  I figured he just drank until he forgot – I mean, does he know about all this?”  Again, with the wild hand gestures.

            Bobby snorts.  “What, you really thought your daddy couldn’t hold down a real job for more than a coupla months?  No, ya idjit, he’s a hunter.  Like me, like Ellen and Bill.  He’s been chasing the sonofabitch that killed your momma your whole damn lives.”  Bobby’s frown deepens and he turns to Jo.  “Which means, if Dean’s right and this is the same beast, you’re gonna have to deal with John Winchester.  And I’ll tell you right now, he won’t take kindly to some upstart Slayer cutting in on his hunt.”

            “Awesome,” Jo mutters.  “Just great.  You know what?” she says, pushing back her chair and standing up.  “I’m going patrolling.  You guys know the way out.”

            “This conversation’s not over, Jo!” Dean calls after her.

            “It never is,” she sighs, and, grabbing a stake, she makes her exit into the night.

 

            “Little girls shouldn’t play with weapons,” a voice from behind sing-songs in Jo’s ear.  “They can get hurt.”

            Jo is spun around in an instant, stake thrust forward and stopped dead center on the chest of the speaker before they can finish their sentence.  She doesn’t relax when she sees that it’s Ruby, just raises an eyebrow.

            “Oh, don’t worry,” Jo tells her sweetly.  “I don’t play.”

            “Well that’s a tragedy,” Ruby smirks, leaning in closer.  “All work and no play makes the Slayer a dull girl.”  She practically breathes the words in Jo’s ear before backing away, out of range of the stake.  Jo pretends she doesn’t feel her heart stutter, just a bit.  (It’s _got_ to be a leather jacket thing.)

            “So I suppose you’re not here on business, then?” Jo retorts when she gets her breath back.

            “Sadly, I am.  But really, graveyard prowling is not a good look on either of us.  What would you say to doing this over food?”

            “Food,” Jo repeats disbelievingly.

            “I was thinking French fries,” Ruby says.

            Which is how the two of them end up in the twenty-four hour McDonald’s at midnight.  The only other people there are the employees and, weirdly enough, Chuck Shurley.  He’s clutching a sheaf of handwritten papers and staring morosely at the screen of a battered laptop, sitting alone at a table littered with empty cardboard coffee cups.  When Jo and Ruby walk in, he spares them a glance and gives Jo a small smile before going back to whatever it is he’s working on.

            Ruby sees Jo looking and rolls her eyes.  “He’s always here.  He says he’s a writer, but whatever.  Teenage artist types.”  She sighs melodramatically.

          At the counter, Ruby just raises her eyebrows at the cashier, who responds with a dirty look and a shout to the back, “Large order of fries!”

            “How often are you here?” Jo asks in disbelief.

            “Often enough,” Ruby shrugs, claiming her tray of French fries with a look of totally unmerited glee.  “What?” she adds defensively when she meets Jo’s eyes.  She sits at a corner booth and waves a fry in Jo’s face.  “French fries.”

            “French fries?”

            “ _French fries_ ,” Ruby repeats, like it’s a perfectly reasonable explanation, and maybe Jo is being deliberately dense.  “They’re like deep-fried crack or something.”

            “You are so weird,” Jo informs her, and steals a fry.  For a moment, Ruby narrows her eyes, looking at Jo like she’s seriously contemplating vicious and bloody murder; but then she shrugs and throws a packet of ketchup at Jo instead.

            “Whatever, Jojo.  Anyway, business.”

            Jo sighs.  If only she could have one interaction in her life that doesn’t revolve around Slayer business.  Just one.  That’d be nice.  “Alrighty.  Whaddya got?”  (She refuses to acknowledge the nickname Ruby has given her.)

            “You killed the messenger,” Ruby says simply.  “Didn’t you ever listen to the sayings?  You’re not supposed to do that.”

            “Yeah, cut the cryptic bullshit, Ruby,” Jo snaps.  “What are you talking about?”

            “Brady, dumbass,” Ruby replies, brandishing a fry like a sword.  “You shouldn’t have killed him.”

            “What was I supposed to do, let him fuck with Sam?”

            “Um, yeah.  Duh.”  Ruby’s condescension is getting kinda old.

            “Um, no.  Duh,” is Jo’s totally mature response, in what is not at all a mocking tone.  “Sam’s my best friend, my brother.  I’m not about to sit by and let some vamp zealot play mind games with him.  Besides, this Master guy thinks I’m beneath him?  Fine.  Let him keep sending messengers.  Let them keep dying.  He’s gonna find out what a Slayer really is.”

            “This isn’t about you,” Ruby snaps, impatient.  “Or, it wasn’t.  This was about Sam and the psychic kids and the coming war.  And you just put yourself in the way of an ancient-ass vampire with a plan that’s been in the works for _centuries_.

            “You don’t want him to underestimate you?  Great, now he’s going to kill you personally.  And now he knows you’re connected to Sam.  Don’t think he won’t use that against the both of you.  You’ve lost the _only advantage you had_.  Dumb fuckin’ move, Slayer.”

            “So help me out here,” Jo demands.  “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?  What war are you talking about?  How the hell do you even know so much about this guy anyway?”

            “I didn’t tell you before because it’s not my job to make sure you do your job right.”  Ruby seems to have a habit of punctuating her sentences by stuffing French fries in her mouth.  It is far more effective than it really has any right to be.  “Except now, apparently, it is.  There’s a war coming.  That’s all I can tell you.  You’ve got libraries, Jo, and Watchers to spare.  Figure it out yourself.  And as for how I know – well, trade secret, I’m afraid,” she says, a bit of playful regret creeping into her voice.  _Great_ , Jo thinks, _so the only way to make her play nice is to let her act all mysterious_.  “I know what I know.”

            “Well, just give me _something_ , Ruby, please.”  Jo means for it to come out exasperated, annoyed; instead, she just sounds tired.

            Ruby studies her for a long minute, licking the salt off her fingertips.  (It’s not distracting.  At all.  Nope.)  Finally, she nods.  “His name is Azazel.”

            When it becomes clear that a name is all she’s getting, Jo takes a deep breath and nods.  “Thank you.”

            “Anytime, kiddo,” Ruby says cheerfully.  “So, how’s school?”

            “What?” Jo says, bewildered by the sudden change in topic.

            “How’s school?” she repeats, slowly this time.  When Jo continues to just stare, Ruby rolls her eyes.  “I said I’m a friend, didn’t I?  And isn’t this what friends do?  Sit in crappy fast food places at ass o’clock at night and talk about their lives?”

            “I guess,” Jo responds, equally slowly.  She kinda wonders where Ruby learned about friendship, because it seems a dubious definition to her.  Ruby just looks at her expectantly.  Finally, Jo shakes her head and says, “So have you ever read _Twelfth Night_?”

            Which somehow leads to another order of French fries and a couple of chocolate shakes (“You know why they don’t call them milkshakes, right?” Ruby asks.  “It’s ‘cause there’s actually like, no real dairy in them.  Gross, right?”  And she takes a huge gulp) and a conversation about badass lady characters which eventually becomes a debate about women in different _Star Trek_ series, though they both agree that _Voyager_ is the best (though Jo favors Janeway and B’ellonna, and Ruby likes Seven of Nine) and ends with Ruby walking Jo home at three in the morning.

            It’s colder out now, and Jo, unwarmed by any good old fashioned vampire slayage (so much for a productive patrol tonight – oops), is woefully unprepared for the weather, shivering a little as they walk.

            “…and the thing about Seven is that in the end she _chooses_ to be human, even if it’s easier to be Borg – are you cold?” Ruby asks abruptly, coming to a halt in the middle of the road.  Jo shrugs, and Ruby rolls her eyes.  “Just ‘cause you’re Slayer doesn’t mean you have to be invincible, you know,” she says, and it’s softer than Jo expects.  Ruby shrugs out of her leather jacket and drapes it over Jo’s shoulders.

            “Thanks,” Jo says, warmed and slightly wrongfooted by the gesture.

            “Yeah,” is all Ruby’s reply.  Even in just a t-shirt, she doesn’t seem bothered by the chill at all, and simply launches back into their conversation.

            When they get to the Roadhouse, Jo pauses awkwardly at the back door, and they both fall into a corresponding silence.  “Well, thanks for the jacket,” Jo says, and goes to slip it off, but Ruby stops her, bringing her hand up so it covers Jo’s.

            “Nah, keep it,” she says casually, smoothing the leather over Jo’s shoulder.  She looks approvingly at Jo, a spark of something in her eye.  “It suits you.”

            They’re close, Jo realizes suddenly, like, stupid close.  For some reason, this makes her breath catch slightly, and Ruby smiles all the wider.

            With a final squeeze of her shoulder, Ruby says, “G’night, Jojo,” and walks away, melting into the darkness beyond the Roadhouse lights.

 

            “His name is Azazel,” Jo announces as she strolls into the library during fifth period the next day.  She doesn’t think anybody hears her, though, because somewhere in the stacks, Dean and Bobby are arguing.  Loudly.

            “I don’t care, Bobby,” Dean says in that way he has that manages to sound both angry and tired at the same time.  Jo can tell without even looking that he’s got his stubborn face on.  “It’s not about what I think I’m _supposed_ to do or whatever, I don’t _want_ to go.  Look at me, what am I gonna do at college, for god’s sake?”

            “What every other dumbass kid your age does at college,” Bobby growls.  “Drink too much, live off junk food, and maybe learn somethin’ useful along the way.”

            “Just because you’ve got your damn PhD doesn’t mean we all need one – “

            “You watch your mouth, boy – “

            “ – ‘Sides, I like working with cars, I like what I do, I’m _good_ at what I do, and you know it!”

            “You think your daddy wants you working on cars for the rest of your life?”

            “I just found out that my dad hunts monsters for a living, Bobby, I really don’t think he gets any sort of say about my future anymore – “

            “He wanted something better for you, that’s why he left you with me – “

            “Left us on a _Hellmouth_?” Dean snorts.  “Yeah, that’s something better alright.”

            “Exactly, a Hellmouth!  You got a chance to get out of Lawrence, you should take it!  Dammit, Dean, you think _I_ want you sitting around here forever?”

            “Well, yeah, Bobby,” Dean says, and his voice is quiet now, tense.  “Family oughta stick around.”

 _Aaaand_ that is Jo’s cue to step in, because she knows how ugly this can get.  She has had, on occasion, similar fights with Mom.  Those are the ones that usually end with her over at Bobby’s place, bitching to Dean and Sam about _family_.

            “I _said_ ,” she interrupts loudly, “That his name.  Is.  Azazel.”  There’s a pause, a shifting in the stacks, and she knows they’ve heard her.  When the pause continues to draw itself out into a silence, she sighs and clarifies.  “The Master.  I’m talking about the Master.  You’ll remember him, Big Bad, keeps throwing vampiric minions at me, has it out for Sam?”

            “Where’d you get the name?” Bobby asks grudgingly, stepping out from what Jo is fairly certain is the shelf containing geography, Ghanaian literature, and historic preservation.

            “A friend,” Jo says simply.  She’s not sure why she doesn’t want to tell anyone about Ruby just yet, just knows that she doesn’t.  She absentmindedly tugs on the leather jacket she wore to school today.  “Where’d you get the PhD?”

            “Northwestern,” Bobby snaps.  “What’s it to you?”

            Jo shrugs.  “Just curious.  Anyway, are you idjits gonna keep hiding and arguing, or are you gonna make yourselves useful for the last thirty minutes of free period and help me find out who this Azazel guy is?”

            “I’ll take Door Number Two,” Dean says sheepishly, and steps out from behind Bobby.  “Hey, Jo.”

            “Hey, dumbass,” she says warmly.  “Grab some books – I’m sure Bobby’s got _something_ on vampires up there – and let’s get crackin’.”

            Sure enough, Bobby does have something on vampires.  Several somethings.  Several somethings that look to be old enough and of questionable enough origin to make Jo wonder how the hell he’s not on the Council’s radar.  Soon, the three of them are sitting in silence around one of the round tables, flipping back and forth through old leatherbound books and a few printed manuscripts that Bobby grunts are translations he’s done of some of the foreign ones.  (“Bobby, this book was originally in Sumerian,” Jo says in wonder.  “Yeah,” Bobby frowns.  “So?”  “You know Sumerian?”  “Yeah.”  “Holy shit, Bobby, you’re awesome.”)  Dean is so fascinated by the fact that all the creepy shit he’s reading is _real_ and not just stories and lore that he keeps stopping to excitedly point out some new discovery about demon worlds or some unnecessarily grisly illustration of sacrifice.  Jo just rolls her eyes and Bobby snaps at him to concentrate, but they all get on all right.

            The problem, of course, with ancient texts, is that they generally don’t have handy little table of contents pages or an index where you can just look up “Azazel.”  So they’re stuck browsing through Bobby’s ‘greatest hits of vampire lore’ in search of references to Azazel’s name or even anything about the Master.  It’s kinda annoying, and by the time the bell for sixth period has rung, Jo is pretty much fed up.  Before she can do more than stand and slam her book shut in frustration, though, Dean flails his hand urgently.

            “Wait, wait, don’t go, I think I found something!”  When Jo and Bobby just look at him skeptically, he rolls his eyes and says, “No, really.  This isn’t like the page about the 72 virgins.  Promise.”

            “Okay, Dean-o, whatcha got?” Jo sighs and sits back down.

            Dean holds up the book he’s reading, a relatively new one (meaning it’s probably from this century and the Council probably wouldn’t try to confiscate it if they knew of its existence in a high school library) called _On the Origins of Vampires and Other Minor Demons_.  Clearing his throat, he reads aloud, “’While we are uncertain of the fate of the Old Ones, they have certainly left their mark on the world.  Vampires are possibly the most obvious example of this – ‘ Blah, blah, we all know what vampires are, dumbass, you don’t have to tell us – ‘The blood exchange through which modern-day vampires create more of their kind is believed to have its basis in the very origin of the species itself.

            “’Many of the Old Ones dined on human blood in ancient days, but before they left this world entirely, one fed its blood to a drained human.  Blood is, in most magicks, the essence of life itself.  When the Old One bled into a human being, he imbued her with his own essence; he made her a demon.  Created by the Old One himself, this demon, known as Lilith, is not a considered a true vampire, though she did feed on human blood.  She is believed to have created only one of her kind, the First True Vampire, the Master of all vampires, Azazel.’”

            “Shit,” Jo breathes.  “He’s the _first_ vampire?”  She looks at Bobby.  “Tell me I’m not in way over my head.”

            “Kid,” Bobby tells her grimly.  “You’re in way over your head.”

            “There’s more here,” Dean says impatiently.  Jo thinks he’s probably reveling in being the one that actually found something.  “Not much, but it talks about how most people think Lilith’s just a legend or something, since she keeps her head low if she’s real: ‘Entirely unconcerned with the race of hellspawn she birthed, Lilith is believed to have focused on bringing about the return of the Old Ones to this world; in short, she is dedicated to bringing Hell to Earth.’  Not one for dramatics, is he?” Dean snorts before continuing.  “’Azazel, too, has disappeared into myth.  To older vampires, he is regarded as a mystical, Messiah-like figure.  They believe that one day, the Master will return to open the Hellmouth and bring forth Lilith’s sire.’  So there’s that.”

            “Awesome,” Jo says.  “Awesome.”

            “What was that you said last night about the Hellmouth and apocalypses?” Dean jokes weakly.  “Tuesdays are a problem?”

            “Today’s Friday,” Jo says stupidly.  Dean laughs, prompting Jo to gather her wits again.  “So at least we have a few days to prepare?”

            “We better have more time than that,” Bobby grumbles with raised eyebrows.  “That’s a good start – good job, Dean.  I’ll start pulling other sources, see what I can find.  Now you two gotta get to class.  I don’t wanna hear from Ellen later that Raphael called her to bitch about you playing hooky.”

            “Sir, yes sir,” Jo says with a mock salute that only deepens Bobby’s frown.  “Come on, Dean.  Be a gentleman, walk me to algebra.”

            “Yeah, yeah, you’re the boss,” Dean sighs as he gathers his bag.  “Nice jacket, by the way.”

 

            It’s eight o’clock on Saturday morning when Ellen’s phone rings.  She groans and rolls toward her nightstand, though she’s strongly tempted to just hit _ignore_ and pull a pillow over her head.  She only got to bed four hours ago, for fuck’s sake.  But the phone keeps ringing, and it’s the phone that she uses exclusively for hunting business, so she groans again and answers groggily.

            “You’ve reached Ellen Harvelle, and this had damn well better be good.”

            _“Hey, Ellen.  It’s Andy.  Sorry for waking you up.”_   The voice on the other line is tired and sad, nothing like Andy used to sound.  Before, he was friendly and perpetually optimistic, a kind-hearted stoner.  He had been the perfect balance to Ava’s high energy, calming both her ill-timed bubbliness and her frantic anxiety.  But then, Ava had burned.  Burned with Andy watching, screaming and helpless, until he was dragged away by the firefighters.  Ellen’s heard that he was badly burned in the fire, but she hasn’t seen the poor kid since.  No one has, really.

            “Hey, Andy,” she says more kindly.  Ellen sits up and rubs the sleep from her eyes.  “How’re you holdin’ up, kid?”

            _“I’m – I’m okay.  As okay as I can be, y’know?”_   Ellen does know.  She’s lost a lot to the life, not least of which is her husband, and she can’t imagine – doesn’t want to imagine – what it might feel like to lose her Slayer, too.  Granted, Ava wasn’t Andy’s family, not by blood, but they were close.  They had a connection, a bond, and it’s gotta be killing Andy that she’s gone.  _“I heard your daughter’s the new Slayer.”_

            “Yeah.  Yeah, it’s Jo now.”

            _“I’m sorry.”_   Because Andy knows what it means for a girl to become the Slayer.  _“They at least letting you be her Watcher?”_

            “No,” she snorts, because here’s something easy to understand – Andy can’t stand the limey bastards on the Council any more than she can.  “They’re trying to foist Balthazar on us.  Of all people.”

            _“Jesus_ ,” Andy says with something that might almost be a laugh.

            “Yeah.  We’ll send him packing, though, don’t you worry.”

            _“I never worry about you, Ellen,”_ he says warmly.  It makes Ellen’s heart ache.  She would gladly have made the kid as much her family as Ash is, but he was called to be a Watcher too soon.  Before she can get too introspective, though, Andy clears his throat and starts again.  _“Listen, I was going through Ava’s stuff for – for her parents.  They couldn’t.  And I – I knew her best, even they knew that.  Did you know they thought I was her boyfriend?”_  He laughs weakly.  _“But I found this diary.  And it’s not – it’s not a Slayer Diary, you know?  So I felt bad about reading it, but then this newspaper article fell out, about a kid who got stabbed to death in a parking lot, and Ava had written on it – ‘electricity.’  That was it, just one word, so I opened it and I looked and – Ellen, Ava was having visions.”_

            Ellen frowns.  “You mean, the prophetic dreams that Slayers get?  That’s pretty rare.”

            _“No, this was different.  She wrote that that’s what she thought they were, at first, but these – they were more vivid.  And waking.”_

            Well, that’s alarming.  Ellen’s thoughts immediately go to Sam.  “What was she seeing, Andy?  Did she say?”

            _“Yeah.  She writes – wrote – a lot about this vampire, some guy calling himself the Master – and I think – I’m afraid she might mean Azazel.  The first vampire.”_   Well, that confirms what Jo said Dean found out in the library yesterday.  Great.  _“And other kids – other psychics.  She made a list of their names.  One was the kid who got stabbed – Scott.  She thinks he could electrocute people just by touching them.  And then some kid named Jake.  Max.  Anson.  Me.”_   Andy swallows thickly.  _“She thought – in the past couple of months, I noticed that if I said things the right way, people listened.  And I guess Ava thought it was more than just chance, or me getting really persuasive.  She thought that it’s a psychic thing.  That it’s caused by the same thing, by the Master, somehow.”_   Ellen can hear the fear in Andy’s voice, hear it when he takes a deep, shaky breath and continues.  _“She researched all these people, even me, and she’s got records of them – who they are, where they live, everything that you can find on the Internet.  And the thing is, these kids are surrounded by death.  Either they die or the people around them do.  I think the Master is coming for them.  He wants them for something, and if they don’t – if they won’t do what he wants – I think he kills them.  Like he killed Ava._

 _“And, Ellen, there’s one in Lawrence.”_   Ellen’s blood runs cold, even though she was expecting this.  She’s been expecting it ever since Andy mentioned the Master.  Just like Sam knew about Ava, it seems that Ava knew about Sam.

            “Sam Winchester,” Ellen says grimly, and it’s not a question.

            _“I – yeah, how’d you know?”_

            “He’s Jo’s best friend.  And the Master’s already after him.  We had a fanged friend come to visit a couple days ago.”

            _“Shit, Ellen, I’m sorry.  Is he okay?”_

            “Yeah, he’s fine.  Jo found him in time.  But word is out that the Master is coming to town, and I get the definite feeling it’s not going to be pretty when he does.  Listen, Andy, can you copy those pages of Ava’s diary and email them to me?  I want to be prepared as possible for this sonofabitch.”  _I want Jo to be as prepared as possible for this sonofabitch_ is what she doesn’t say, but what they both hear anyway.

            _“Yeah, I can do that.  I’ll send whatever I can your way.”_

            “Thanks, Andy.  And one more favor?”

            _“Yeah?”_

            “Be careful.”  It’s soft, and from the small intake of breath over the line, Ellen can tell Andy didn’t expect it.  _Shit, who’s taking care of this kid these days?_   Andy was homeless and living out of his van before he had to get his shit together for Ava’s sake.  The young Slayer had taken care of him almost as much as he had taken care of her.  “If the Master’s out for all the psychic kids, I want you to watch out for him.  And maybe – maybe don’t use your persuasive thing too much.  Don’t wanna draw the wrong kinds of attention.”

            _“Thanks, Ellen.”_

            “Thank _you_ , Andy.  Take care, okay?”

            _“Okay.”_

 

            “Darling, you can’t _possibly_ be studying on such a lovely Sunday afternoon,” Balthazar’s smoothly disbelieving voice says from somewhere _way too close_ to Jo’s ear.  So she does what any inopportunely startled Slayer would do: rams her elbow back into what turns out to be Balthazar’s gut.  He makes a horrible heaving sound at having all the wind knocked out him, and Jo indulges in a satisfied smirk before turning around in all alarmed innocence.

            “Oh my _gosh_ , Balto, I didn’t see you there, are you quite all right?”  It’s _really_ hard not to go back to smirking when he glares at her like he wants to smite her something fierce.  “And anyways,” she continues once it’s clear that he won’t be capable of speech for another couple of minutes.  She holds up the book she’s reading, _Religion for the Unholy Undead: Vampire Myths, Legends, and Rituals._   “I’m not studying.  I’m researching.  You’ve missed out on some fun stuff since you’ve been holed up in that hotel across town.  You do know that, if you really actually wanna be my Watcher, you’ve gotta put in some effort here?”

            “If you must know,” Balthazar says stiffly, straightening up, and he seems the most serious he’s been since Jo’s met him.  “I’ve been in constant contact with the Council over the little dilemma of the post of your Watcher, and, as it was made quite clear to me that you weren’t particularly enthused by my presence, I thought I’d give you some space and time to get used to the idea.”

            “Consider me accustomed,” Jo says as snootily as possible.  “Let me catch you up, then: while you were out, you missed the rise of a Big Bad, my best friend getting attacked by vampires, and the onset of an apocalypse.”  Balthazar’s eyebrows shoot up, and Jo decides that skeptical isn’t really a good look on him.  She smiles, big and bright.  “Welcome to the Hellmouth.”

 

            “And so frigging _Balto_ spent half the afternoon telling me that I need to _get out and relaaax, darling, enjoy what little youth I’m sure you’ve got left_.  I mean, really?  Like, that’s so not playing fair, pointing out that being Slayer’s gonna kill me soon.  And also, isn’t he supposed to like, I dunno, _encourage_ me to be doing research and training and Slayer stuff, not the other way around?  Worst.  Watcher.  _Ever_.”  Jo finishes, flopping onto the couch next to Dean.

            “Which is why we’re not letting him be your Watcher, right?” Dean says dismissively.  “But he’s right – not about the dying thing,” he adds hurriedly when Jo sends a sharp glare his way, “But like, seriously, Jo, you work too much.”

            “Which is basically you just telling me to shut up and put on _Supernatural_ , isn’t it?” Jo asks with a wry smile.

            “Yeah basically,” Dean agrees easily.  “Look, we’ve got popcorn, four weeks of _Supernatural_ to catch up on, and a solid three hours where Bobby’s not frowning at me about college.  You’ve done all your homework, you’ve worried about the Master until you sprouted like four new grey hairs – “

            “I do not have grey hairs!”

            “– so let’s do this thing.”

            “You just think the Summers sisters are hot,” Jo grouches.

            “Well _duh_.”

            So Jo pops in the tape (because she and Mom are way too cheap for TiVo so they still record everything on VHS).  _Supernatural_ is hers and Dean’s favorite show – although, actually, it might just be a cover for the fact that Dean’s real favorite show is _Dr. Sexy_.  (Sam doesn’t get the appeal.  He’s always been one for more practical fictions – read, anything aired on PBS Masterpiece or BBC America – besides being pretty much addicted to the Discovery Channel.)  _Supernatural_ is about two sisters, Buffy and Dawn Summers, who are hunting down the demon that killed their father when they were young.  It’s full of badass women, awesome lighting, and some of the campiest and most inaccurate monsters Jo has ever seen.  She eats this shit up.  And also has decided that she kinda wants to be Buffy when she grows up (just with a less stupid name; sorry Buff).

            Last season was mostly spent in a search for their mother, but now the two girls are dealing with some kind of mystery surrounding Dawn.  It’s a captivating plot, or it would be if Dean didn’t keep interrupting like every two seconds.  Seriously.  Every time Jo’s fast-forwarding through the commercials, it’s a sudden influx of curiosity.  Questions like, _wait so are werewolves real?_ and _what about demons?_ and _are shapeshifters really like that?_ and _what about like, gods and stuff?_ until Jo throws her hands in the air and shouts, “ _Yes, Dean, it’s all real, now shut up and watch the damn show._ ”  She can hear Mom laughing from the kitchen.  Dean doesn’t have the grace to look even a little bit ashamed.

            By the time they’re halfway into the most recent episode, it’s after ten and Jo is feeling her week finally catch up with her.  It’s just a monster-of-the-week episode, so she doesn’t feel too bad about not paying much attention to the show.  Besides, it’s about Hellhounds, which, while grossly inaccurate and horribly campy (seriously, it’s just a dude in a really hairy dog costume) (actually, that costume looks like it might’ve been recycled from the season one werewolf episode), are not exactly Jo’s favorite subject.

            As Buffy struggles with one of the hairy monstrosities, Jo tells Dean tiredly, “Hellhounds don’t really look like that.”

            Dean snorts, which Jo takes to mean, _nothing really looks like that_.  Which, fair.

            “No, I mean, they don’t look like anything.  They’re invisible, unless they’re after you.”

            “Huh.  Why d’they come after you?” Dean asks with sleepy curiosity.  He, too, is only paying half attention to the show at this point.

            “Demons use ‘em.  So like, you make a deal with a crossroads demon, and then ten years later when the deal’s up, they sic their Hounds on you.  Giant, spectral black dogs, that only you can see and hear.  They hunt you for days, tear you apart, and drag your soul down to Hell.”

            “ _Jesus_ ,” Dean hisses under his breath, flinching.  He looks much more alert than he did two seconds ago.  And Jo can understand why.  The things Buffy is fighting are barely even intimidating.  Jo watches as Dawn squirts one with a spray bottle full of holy water, and the thing falls away howling.

            “That’s how my dad died,” Jo says quietly.  Dean looks over sharply at her.  She’s never told anyone this.  She’s never been able to.  When it happened, Mom told people that Dad had been hit by a car.  “I don’t know if he made a deal, or if he was just hunting them, but that’s what got him in the end.  That’s why Mom never wanted me hunting.  I think – I think the idea of losing me, too, is just too much for her.”

            Dean’s never really been good with words, but he reaches out and wraps his arm around Jo’s shoulders and pulls her close.  She spends the rest of the episode curled into Dean’s side, basking in the warmth and the closeness and the comfort, both of them pretending not to notice the few fat tears leaking down Jo’s face.

 

 _“Sam?_ ” The voice on the other line is alert, concerned.  Which, ya know, Sam gets.  It’s not like he calls very often.  Never, really, unless Dean makes him, and Dean is safe on Jo’s couch, watching that stupid TV show.  _“Everything okay, son?”_

            “Hey, Dad,” Sam says tiredly.  How is he even supposed to _start_ this conversation?  Is that why Dad has never brought it up?  The sheer awkwardness of the topic?  “Yeah, everything’s – okay, well, everything’s vampires, actually.”

            Well, that’s one way.

 _“Everything’s vampires?”_ John repeats, sounding amused.  _“What, please don’t tell me that Jo girl’s gotten you into that_ Twilight _shit.”_

            Sam actually has to laugh a bit at that, just because it’s so ridiculous.  “Please, Dad.  You’ve met Jo.  Can you really see her being into that?”  Although, on second thought, Sam supposes she might be, if only for the comic relief factor.  After all, now that he’s met a real, live (dead? undead?) actual vampire, he’s pretty sure the _Twilight_ ones don’t even come close.  “But no, I mean, vampires, Dad.  Like, in the past, what, twelve years since you left, you couldn’t find the time to mention that, oh hey, vampires are real?”

 _“What are you talking about, Sam?”_ Dad’s voice is slow, dangerous.  The way it sounds right before a fight.  Which, of course, immediately puts Sam on the defensive.

            “I’m talking about _vampires_ , Dad!” he says loudly, with a violent hand gesture that Dad can’t see.  “Like my friend Brady, who just came back to town to recruit me to the Dark Side and almost tore Jo and Dean’s heads off with his teeth!  His very pointy, very vampiric, teeth!”

 _“You were attacked by a vampire?”_ John demands, all pretense gone from his voice.  _“Dammit, Bobby is supposed to keep you boys away from shit like that.”_

            “Yeah, well, maybe that’d be easier if I weren’t psychic,” Sam snaps, and almost immediately regrets it.  Bobby hadn’t said anything directly to Sam in the aftermath of the conversation at the Roadhouse, but he had heavily implied that Sam probably shouldn’t be telling his father about the visions.  John Winchester apparently has some pretty black-and-white views when it comes to the supernatural.

            The shocked silence has gone on almost too long when John speaks again.  _“What did you just say?”_

            Sam sighs heavily.  “Psychic.  I’m psychic, Dad.”  John doesn’t say anything, so Sam forces a smile and tries to lighten things up.  “Yeah, it freaked me out too, at first.  Okay, that’s a lie, I’m still pretty freaked out.  Which brings us back to the point of, wow, I’m really pissed you didn’t tell us about this before.”

 _“I was trying to protect you,”_ John says stiffly.  _“I didn’t want you to have to know about this.”_

            “Yeah, well, this was a sucky way to find out.”  And they’re back to tense silence.  Ah, such is the way with him and Dad – they’re either fighting (complete with shouting and cussing and saying things they both regret later), or they have absolutely nothing to say to each other.

 _“What do you mean, you’re psychic?”_ Dad asks at last.

            “I don’t know,” Sam sighs, pinching his nose in frustration.  “I mean, I have these dreams, visions, I guess.  And then they come true.  And they’re all connected.  Like, it’s not about what’s gonna happen to me tomorrow, or the winning lotto numbers, or anything useful.  It all leads back to this vampire, called the Master.”

            There’s a sharp breath down the line, and Dad snaps out, like an order, _“You stay away from him, Sam.  You stay as far away as you can.”_

            “I’m trying, Dad!  It’s not like I walked outside one night and said, hey, it’d be a good idea to go hunt down some really dangerous vampires!”  Oh, good, they’re fighting again.  Fighting’s easier to handle.  After all, this is basically why Sam called, isn’t it?  To duke it out with Dad about all this bullshit?  “No, vampires came to _me_.  The Master is coming to _me_.  He turned one of my childhood friends and then sent him back to Lawrence to try and get to me!”

 _“What does he want from you?”_ John demands.  _“What does he want with our family?”_

            “I don’t know Dad, why don’t you ask him.  You’ve been hunting him for twelve years now, haven’t you?  But hey, here’s the bright end of nothing – if you haven’t managed to find the Master in all that time, I doubt I’ll find him before the next zealot comes head hunting.”

_“Watch your tone with me, Samuel.  I’m your father.  And I’m – everything I’ve done for your entire life has been to protect you and your brother.”_

            “Yeah?  Protect us by what, dumping us on a Hellmouth with a broken ex-hunter who won’t tell us why he ever hunted in the first place?  Dumping us here without ever telling us what’s out there, what we’re up against?  What kind of protection is that, Dad?”

_“Dammit Sam, you’re being unreasonable.  Leaving you with Bobby – there’s no place on Earth that’s safer.  This psychic crap, that wasn’t supposed to happen, you were supposed to be normal.”_

            “Well I’m not,” Sam chokes out, suddenly on the verge of tears.  “I’m not normal.  I’m some kind of psychic _freak_ , and I’m _scared_ , Dad.  I’m scared and I don’t know what to do and _you’re not here_.  You’re _never_ here.”

            “Dammit Sammy, give me the phone,” Dean says roughly, appearing at Sam’s elbow.  He didn’t even hear Dean come in.  Sam doesn’t respond, just lets Dean pry the phone from his white-knuckled fingers.  “Dad?  What the hell?”

            Sam can’t hear the other half of the conversation, and Dean’s half isn’t much at all, just some _yeah_ s and _no, Dad_ s and, at the end, a thin-lipped, shame-faced, _yessir_.  Sam just sits there and focuses on breathing and swallowing the unexpected angry tears until Dean hangs up.

            Sam can’t look up when his brother turns to him, doesn’t want to know what Dad said about the psychic freak sideshow of the family.  Finally, Dean just sighs and pulls Sam into a tight, one-armed hug, muttering into Sam’s hair.

            “You’re not a freak, Sammy.  Well, not any more of a freak than you ever were.  We’re gonna figure this out.  We’re gonna be okay.”

 

            “It’s not much, but it’s all I’ve got,” Sam says apologetically, thrusting a notebook into Jo’s face.  She blinks at it for a couple of seconds before it occurs to her to take it.  It’s Wednesday afternoon and she only has an hour between school and when she really needs to be back to help set up for opening.  She’s absolutely stuck on this geology assignment for her earth sciences class and she’s having trouble concentrating because seriously, who cares about rocks when there’s a coming apocalypse to worry about?  And speaking of, she’s still got jack-all on the Master, despite hours of research and the stuff that Andy sent over.  Jo is tired and overworked and has no idea why Sam is handing her a 3-subject spiral notebook.

            “It’s my dream journal,” Sam clarifies when he seems to realize that Jo has no idea what’s going on.  “The one you asked me to do.  About the yellow – about Azazel.”  Sam has been oddly determined to make sure he says Azazel’s name every time, and Jo has the feeling that it somehow grounds him.  That giving it a name makes the monster less scary.

            Jo only wishes it were that easy.

            “Thanks,” she says at last.  Sam sits down across the table from her and watches as she flips the notebook open.  The pages are crammed with line after line of Sam’s handwriting – messy, but something Jo can read from years of experience of passing notes in class.  The notes are incredibly detailed – Sam has names and house numbers and conversations that he’s noted are probably not word for word, but pretty close.  On the most recent page, Sam has made a note in the margin that reads, _Azazel not killing directly?_

            When Jo points it out, Sam shrugs uncomfortably.  “In the dreams, he’s there.  With me, not – not doing the actions, the killing.  I think…In the dream with Scott – the one that Ava had, too – I thought I saw the hand holding the knife.  It was a girl’s hand.  And Ava – well, before the guy came in – you said his name was Andy? – before Andy came in, someone left the room.  Someone blonde.  That’s all I know.”

            “No, Sam, that’s really helpful,” Jo reassures him.  “Thanks, man.  Do you know why the Master is getting someone to do his dirty work for him?”

            “I think so,” Sam says, sounding a bit more eager.  It’s the same voice he uses when he works out a difficult math problem.  “See, I don’t think he _can_ be doing these things.  Something Brady said to me before you showed up – there’s a coupla pages on that…here,” Sam adds, flipping to a different section in the notebook.  “But he said that I was meant to be there, with them, ‘when the Master rises.’  I think right now, he’s trapped, somehow.  Brady and the other followers, the other vampires, they’re going to bring him back from somewhere else.  And then, ya know, the whole raising-the-Old-Ones thing or whatever.  But I think that’s why we – the children – we’re being sent messengers.  I think I’ve only been seeing the aftermath a lot of the time.  What if Brady was supposed to get me on their side, but if he failed, kill me?  It’d explain a lot.”

            “Yeah, it really would,” Jo muses, flipping back to the section on the dreams.  The most recent one is the one she’s worried about – it’s dated from last night, and it’s the only thing in the dream journal that hasn’t come to pass.  “Spring fling?” she asks Sam, pointing at his notes.

            “Yeah,” he says, and blushes.  “But…I’m not sure if that one’s real?”

            “What do you mean?” Jo frowns at him.

            “Well, uh, I,” Sam coughs awkwardly.  “I dreamed I took Jess to the spring fling and then we were attacked by vampires.”  He says it all in one breath, clearly embarrassed, and it’s everything Jo can do not to grin her Evil Big Sister Grin.  “So I’m not sure if that was a vision or just.  Me.  Dreaming.”

            “You want to take Jessica Moore to spring fling?” Jo asks innocently.

            Sam nods and blushes even worse.  Oh, this is _priceless_.  “But, I mean.  It felt like one of the visions!  It had the same, same, oh I dunno, texture I guess.  And I woke up with a headache, which always happens.  So, probably a vision?”

            Jo nods thoughtfully.  “You know, Jess asked me about you the other day,” she remembers out loud.  She hasn’t really thought about it, mostly because it had absolutely nothing to do with vampires and, as previously established, she doesn’t seem to have room in her life for non-vampire-related things.

            “She did?” Sam asks, going for casual and missing by a mile.  It’s adorable, really.

            “Mmm.  Wanted to know if you and I were dating, of all things.”

            Sam chokes on the air, looking a combination of horrified and panicked.  Jo frowns.  It was weird, but not _that_ weird.  “What did you tell her?” he demands with no small amount of alarm.

            Jo shrugs, exaggeratedly nonchalant, drawing it out to punish Sam for being so freaked out at the thought of dating her.  “I mean, I didn’t realize it was such a big deal, maybe I should’ve said something different…”

            “Jo!” Sam practically squeaks, and Jo takes pity.

            “Oh, for god’s sake, of course I told her we weren’t dating.  You’re like, my brother or something, it’d be weird to let people think that.”  Neither of them mentions how Dean is _not_ like her brother, despite the fact that they all grew up family.  Jo’s relationships with the Winchesters are complex and not for the faint of heart, she accepted that long ago.

            “What’d she say?” Sam insists.

            “She blushed and said, _oh good_ , so I’d say you’ve got a pretty decent chance there, bucko,” Jo admits, and punches Sam lightly on the arm even as he lets out an enormous sigh of relief.  “So now you’ve got no excuse,” she adds cheerfully.  “You have to lady up and ask her to the dance.”

            “What?  No!  What if there are vampires?”

            “I promise to save you from the vampires,” Jo says with a roll of her eyes.  “Look, if that part of your vision is true, then so is the part where you go with Jess.  So just, like, do it.  You already know she’ll say yes.”

            “No, I don’t,” Sam whines, but his pathetic Jess-induced nervous breakdown is interrupted by Dean bursting through the library doors with a triumphant grin on his face.  Which is never, ever, _ever_ a good sign.

            Sure enough, “Guess who Anna Milton just asked to the spring fling?” he declares, because it really is more of a declaration than a question.

            “Chuck Shurley?” Jo guesses flatly, already knowing the real answer.

            “No,” Dean says, looking at her like she’s just grown a second head.  “Although he did ask her.  Just like he asked her to winter formal.  And homecoming.”

            “Dude, how do you even know this?” Jo asks, slightly awed.  Because she hadn’t even noticed Chuck’s existence until last week, and apparently Dean’s all up in the gossip chain.

            “Everyone knows this, Jo,” Dean says in irritation.  “That’s not the point, the point is that spoiler alert, Anna Milton asked _me_ to spring fling.”  He holds his arms wide, grinning even wider, as if expecting applause.  When Jo just looks at him with raised eyebrows and Sam rolls his eyes, Dean deflates and flops into the chair next to Sam.  “You guys suck.”

            “You can’t go to spring fling with Anna, Dean,” Sam says firmly.  For a second, Jo thinks Sam is trying to protect her feelings, but then he continues.  “None of us can.  Well, maybe Jo,” he adds as an afterthought.

            “What?  Why the hell not?”

            “Because vampires, Dean,” Jo sighs.

            “Dude, why is everything suddenly about vampires?”

            “Everything is always about vampires,” Jo grumbles.  “Welcome to my life.  Enjoy your stay.”

            “Whatever,” Dean grouches, his high from his good news clearly gone.  “I’m going anyway.  Or did you guys miss the part where _Anna Milton_ asked me?”

            “I didn’t even know you liked her,” Sam says desperately.  His eyes keep darting to Jo, who wants to punch him for being so obvious.  Please.  Like she doesn’t have to go through this every single time Dean gets a new girlfriend.  She can handle herself.  (It can’t be as bad as Cassie, who Dean really and truly loved last summer, until she left for college and New York and better things.)

            Dean turns the grown-a-second-head look on Sam.  “Duh.  She’s hot, she’s awesome, and she’s one of the toughest chicks I know.  Not counting Jo,” he adds, but it’s a throwaway line.  Jo already knows she doesn’t count.  It doesn’t even really sting anymore.  “And she.  Asked me.  To spring fling.  Dude, I’m going, vampires be damned.”  He frowns.  “Or whatever.”

            “Exactly, Sam,” Jo chimes in with false cheerfulness.  “Dean’s not worried about the vampires, and neither should you be.  Just _ask Jess_ to go to the stupid dance and let me handle the vamps.  It is, after all, my job, sacred duty, destiny, et cetera.”  _Besides_ , she thinks, not at all bitterly, _it’s not like I’m going_.

            Sam looks at Jo, hard, for a solid thirty seconds before he answers; stares at her like he’s trying to read her mind (and Jo suddenly _really_ hopes that Sam never becomes that particular kind of psychic).  Finally, he sighs and slumps in his seat.  “Fine.  I just really hope there’s not actually vampires.”

            Jo decides that, since she has basically won this round, she’s not going to point out that there will almost certainly be vampires.  She’s benevolent like that.

 

            Because Jo has been in love with Dean since basically forever, she has developed a wide variety of coping mechanisms for the inevitable times he gets a new girlfriend.  It’s such a routine at this point that her chest barely even aches as she lays in bed and mopes about the prospect of Dean and Anna to the tune of REO Speedwagon.

            It’s late, after Roadhouse duty, after patrolling (a quiet night in both cases), and Jo is at an odd, sad, familiar sort of peace.  Or, at least she is until there’s an insistent tapping on her window at one o’clock in the morning.

            Really?  Can’t a girl catch a break?  With a sigh, Jo reaches under her bed for her handy dandy machete, simultaneously pulling her dad’s knife from her ankle sheath (yes, she even wears it to bed.  A Slayer is always prepared).  She creeps over to the window, feeling much less alarmed than she probably should, but really, what sort of monster taps on your window to warn you it’s coming for you?

            Apparently, the Ruby sort.  Ruby appears to be somehow dangling from the roof, her grinning face hanging upside down in Jo’s window, blonde hair brushing the windowsill.  _How the hell did she even get up there?_ Jo wonders.

            Jo throws open the window and glares at Ruby.  “How the hell did you even get up there?”

            “Nice to see you, too, Jojo,” Ruby says cheerfully.  “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

            “No,” Jo grumps, because this is her precious sulking time Ruby has interrupted, and it’s probably just with more bad news.  She doesn’t even bother asking how Ruby found her room.

            “Rude,” Ruby sighs dramatically.  Ruby’s the sort of person Jo would expect to swing in through the open window anyway, but she doesn’t.  “In that case, wanna come out?”

            “Why would I want to go out?  Can’t you see I’m busy sulking?”  Jo waves her hand in the general direction of her stereo system (compiled, like Frankenstein’s monster, from the mangled pieces of dead systems rescued from thrift stores and dumps, a birthday gift from Ash three years ago).  Kevin Cronin is currently crooning about how someone is _a candle in the window on a cold, dark winter’s night_.

            Ruby rolls her eyes, a motion that looks incredibly weird upside down.  “Yeah, and you’re totally not even doing it properly, which is why you should come out with me.”

            Jo raises her eyebrows.  “Oh really?  Tell me, oh wise one, how does one sulk properly then?”

            “It involves a lot more Taylor Swift,” Ruby informs her sagely, and then grins.  “Meet me out your front door.  I have a car!”

            There is absolutely no logical explanation for how Ruby proceeds to do some sort of midair flip and land solidly on her feet, two stories down.  There is also no logical explanation for why Jo sighs, grabs her (Ruby’s) coat, flips off her music and her lights, and goes downstairs.  But she does.

            Ruby does, indeed, have a car.  It’s a beat up red thing that looks like she probably rescued it from Bobby’s salvage yard, and it’s idling in the driveway of the Roadhouse.  Ruby is playing – air drum? air guitar? some hellish combination of every instrument ever? – on the steering wheel, and Jo can hear the music through the closed windows.  It is, indeed, Taylor Swift.

            Jo is regretting this already.

            But still, she slides into the passenger seat to Ruby’s contagious grin, and Jo can feel herself start to smile as Ruby turns up the stereo to _once upon a time I believe it was a Tuesday when I caught your eye_.  Ruby rolls down the windows as they peel out of the driveway and Jo knows it’ll be a miracle if that doesn’t wake Mom up and there will be explanations to make in the morning but right now – well, right now.

            Right now, Jo doesn’t ask where they’re going, just lets Ruby drive them straight out of town and into farm country, speeding to the rhythm of half an album of Taylor Swift music.  (Jo’s trying to pretend that she doesn’t know this album is called _Fearless_ , that she doesn’t know half the words to these songs, but really Sam’s Taylor Swift phase from a couple years back – which Jo has been sworn to secrecy about on _pain of death_ – is coming back full force, and she almost wants to sing along.)

            “So what’re you sulking about?” Ruby asks eventually, turning the music down slightly.  “We’ve gotta find the exact perfect song for this, after all.”

            “How do you know Taylor Swift will have the exact perfect song?”  Even though if anyone does have such a song for Jo’s situation, it’ll be Taylor Swift.

            Ruby sends her a Look.  “Taylor Swift has the exact perfect song for _everything_ ,” she informs Jo.  “So what’s up?”

            “I’ve been in love with my friend Dean for years,” Jo blurts, even though she doesn’t talk about this.  To anyone.  Not even Sam, really.  “And he just got asked out.  Again.  Which I’m used to, but still…” Jo trails off.

            “But still, ouch,” Ruby agrees.  “Well, you’re in luck, girlfriend.  Because Taylor knows what you’re saying.”  She flips through the CD quickly until Taylor starts singing that _you’re on the phone with your girlfriend she’s upset_ and Jo totally remembers all the words to this song and next thing she knows they’re both shout-singing at the top of their lungs that _CAN’T YOU SEE THAT I’M THE ONE WHO UNDERSTANDS YOU_ as they race down country roads under the stars.

            An order of fries, two chocolate shakes, several dozen miles, and three more Taylor Swift albums later, they pull back into the Roadhouse driveway.  The sky is just beginning to get light in the East, grey with a hint of pink at the very edge of the horizon, and Jo is so gonna regret this at school tomorrow – later today? – but for right now…

            Ruby turns down the music and looks over to Jo with a small smile.  “Feeling better, Jojo?”

            “Actually, yeah,” Jo grins, because she feels kinda awesome, really.  Not moping anymore, not even tired.  Just…good.  “Thanks.”

             Ruby’s grin widens as she reaches out and brushes a strand of hair out of Jo’s face, and her touch is electrifying.  Jo’s breath catches, and Ruby’s hand freezes.  For a long moment, nothing happens except a lot of staring.  And then Ruby leans forward, hesitantly at first, but then more surely and Jo’s brain is completely blanking out on how to react here so she closes her eyes and then oh hey those are Ruby’s lips are on hers.  It’s sweet and soft and seemingly entirely too short because Jo finds herself chasing the kiss when Ruby pulls away.  When Jo remembers to open her eyes, Ruby’s only a few inches away still, giving Jo a soft smirk.

            “If you ever decide to stop moping about Dean,” Ruby says, “Well, you know where to find me.”

            “I don’t, actually,” Jo says stupidly.  Well, it’s true.  “You always just kinda…show up.”

            Ruby’s smile grows.  She takes Jo’s hand and, fumbling a pen from the floor of the car, scribbles something there.  “Now you do.”  She pulls away and gives Jo’s shoulder a gentle shove.  “Now get.  Sun’s almost up.”

 

            About two hundred miles ago on I-70, a trucker picked up a hitchhiker – a young girl with a blonde pixie cut and a worn backpack.  He told her with a leer, _girl like you shouldn’t be out all by yourself at night_.  She breathlessly thanked him for his kindness, for picking her up and protecting her.

            Now, his semi lies in a ditch off the side of the road, creaking and groaning and coughing out smoke, next to a sign welcoming it to Lawrence, Kansas.  With a terrific, screeching rip of metal, a jagged hole is torn in the roof of the cab, and the blonde girl emerges unscathed.  She jumps to the road, landing lightly on her feet, and straightens her jacket.  With a small smile, she waves a goodbye to the broken truck and, licking the last drops of blood from her lips, she tells the wreckage, “Thanks for the ride.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so first I apologize because this morning I was all, aw yeah I managed to post this one on time! and then I realized haha no it's actually a full week late. So I'm terribly sorry, I am apparently terrible at this whole thing, I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me.
> 
> Also, to anyone familiar with Star Trek: Voyager, I apologize for the willful misinterpretation of Seven's character. There is a reason for it, but it pains me anyway. To those of you unfamiliar with Star Trek: Voyager, please watch Star Trek: Voyager.
> 
> Also also, please note that I'll be editing the tags as I go. I don't always know exactly what's gonna happen in the next chapter, so I'll add relevant tags as I update. So please double check if you want warnings for things like character death (sorry but really I combined BtVS and SPN people are bound to get dead I just know it). I'll also try to add relevant warnings in the notes at the tops of chapters.

**Author's Note:**

> (Sorry for the lateness. I know, I know, off to a bad start with punctuality here. In my defense, I'm currently living in a National Park, and the wifi access is spotty at best, and was knocked out by a storm Tuesday. Next time will be prompt, I do so solemnly swear!)
> 
> Again, title from the telling of the story of the First Slayer, as shown in BtVS s7.


End file.
